Tips and Tricks
by Moirae Ma'at
Summary: A collection of humorous Naruto short stories. 05: Kiri has been trying to get their hands on an Uzumaki since before Whirlpool was founded and now they have their chance.
1. 01: Index

**Summary:** A collection of humorous Naruto short stories.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Naruto or any of the affiliated people, objects, jutsus, summons, or inventions. They are being used here for non-profit purposes and purely for fun.

==o0o==

_**Tips and Tricks**_

_**By Moirae Ma'at**_

==o0o==

**Index**

**Chapter 2 – Fear the Flash – **A hyper Naruto looks a lot like the Yellow Flash and Iwa's had designs on Minato's son since before he could walk, much less run.

**Chapter 3 – Lord Hokage –** Naruto goes back in time – and so does every member of the Rookie 9. The Chunin Exam will be very interesting this time around…

**Chapter 4 – The Genin Kage** – Someone once said that Naruto would have to be Kage-level before he would be promoted to Chunin. They didn't know how right they were…

**Chapter 5 – Crimson Currents – **Kiri has been trying to get their hands on an Uzumaki since before Whirlpool was founded and now they have their chance.


	2. 02: Fear the Flash

**Summary:** A collection of humorous Naruto short stories. 02: A hyper Naruto looks a lot like the Yellow Flash and Iwa's had designs on Minato's son since before he could walk, much less run.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Naruto or any of the affiliated people, objects, jutsus, summons, or inventions. They are being used here for non-profit purposes and purely for fun.

==o0o==

_**Tips and Tricks**_

_**By Moirae Ma'at**_

==o0o==

**Fear the Flash**

Kakashi didn't know how it happened, but Naruto had somehow gotten his hands on sake, mochi, and chocolate. Sake on its own wasn't anything to worry about – the Kyuubi could neutralize enough alcohol to knock out an entire ANBU cell – but something about the way that the two rice products interacted made Naruto the ninja equivalent of the energizer bunny and chocolate always made everything worse.

The Kohona ANBU had quickly learned that Naruto was uncatchable when he had caffeine – chocolate, coffee, energy drink, it didn't matter. Naruto moved too fast to be caught when he was hyped up on the stimulant and the village they were in didn't have any ramen to use as bait. Actually, the lack of ramen was probably how Naruto ended up eating mochi in the first place, especially when it wasn't anywhere near the new year. He'd swear that kid could find the strangest foods, no matter what village they were in for their mission. Like that one time in Snow…

The Jounin shook off his thoughts and suppressed a sigh as he signaled for his the other two members of his Genin squad to converge where he was standing. The three shinobi watched as Naruto zipped around the open clearing they had guided him towards in an attempt to stop him from causing damage to the village they were staying in. It was a lot safer to let the blonde burn off his energy by running around like a chicken with it's head cut off than it was to try and confine him, even if they were a little closer to the border with Iwa than Kakashi preferred. They'd stopped at the village to get some more supplies before returning to border duty, but the simple stop-over had turned into a fiasco when they discovered a hyper Naruto.

Kakashi pulled out his Icha Icha and began to read while Sasuke and Sakura looked askance at both their sensei and their teammate. The older male reading his perverted book was nothing new, but Naruto's actions were over the top, even for their exuberant teammate. The jinchuriki was zipping around the clearing using his hyper-active speed, leaving a blazing trail of purple behind him. Blue and red chakra surrounded the boy as he moved from one place to another, eventually leading to Naruto using the shushin to transport from one place to another instantaneously. This scattered afterimages of blondes throughout the clearing that was already infused with the purple chakra and managed to confuse the other two Genin.

Sasuke took Naruto's actions as a challenge and immediately released his own chakra to try and keep up with the blonde. The Uchiha tried to pump out as much chakra as Naruto was carelessly leaving around the clearing but collapsed in exhaustion before his blue chakra formed more than a slightly visible haze around his form. Sakura immediately began fussing over her crush and Kakashi mentally rolled his eyes at Sasuke's hubris. The boy should know by now that his teammate had huge chakra stores, something that was evident to most of the shinobi population by the way that the kid cavalierly threw around the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu. That thing took quite a bit of power to use and Naruto created hundreds at a time without even appearing mildly winded. It was clear that the kid had chakra to spare, even if he had no control.

Kakashi'd just sit here and read his Icha Icha until Naruto finally burned enough chakra to act normal again. It might take a couple of hours, but Sakura would take care of the exhausted Sasuke and enemies would have to be suicidal to take on a shinobi putting out as much visible chakra as Naruto was. They were safe from attack, although some Iwa nin might come investigate…

.~.~.~.

In fact, a group of Iwa shinobi had been patrolling their side of the Konoha-Iwa border when they felt wildly flaring chakra and immediately moved in the direction of the source. There was no way they could leave something that chaotically powerful uninvestigated – it might pose a danger to their village or it might be a powerful weapon that could help them. Hopefully it was the later.

The four shinobi stopped when they felt several other chakra signatures, although one of them increased and then basically disappeared quite quickly. Knowing that there were shinobi near the change chakra source, the Iwa nin slowed down and cloaked their chakra in order to get a closer look.

The two males and two females peaked into the clearing saw what was obviously a Jounin reading an orange books, a pink-haired kunoichi fluttering over a dark-haired Genin and a blonde kid bouncing around the clearing like a pinball with visible purple chakra trailing along behind him.

They observed the other group of four for a few minutes before retreating to a safer distance and mulling over what they had just seen.

"Is it just me or does that blonde kid look a lot like the Yellow Flash?" one of the Iwa genin cautiously questioned his Jounin-sensei. He'd been comparing new and old Bingo Books while recovering from his training and the glimpse he'd gotten of the hyper boy's face had been shockingly similar to the face of Konoha's Yondaime Hokage from Iwa's old Bingo Books.

"Yeah, he does," she slowly replied, considering just how similar the hyper blonde was to the man she had seen decimate battlefields in the Konoha-Iwa War. The boy bouncing around the clearing was almost a carbon copy of the Yellow Flash, from his bright unruly hair to his insane speed, and there was a standing rule in Iwa that any offspring of Minato Namikaze were to be either kidnapped or avoided. She'd love to come back with a Namikaze, but from the huge amount of chakra in the clearing and the whisker marks on the blonde's face, it was highly likely he was a Jinchuriki and there was no way she was going to try and kidnap a demon vessel, especially not one that was casually putting out that much chakra.

The Jounin summoned a small hawk and attached a message about the blonde to the bird before sending it to her Kage. Iwa had had a flee on sight order out for Konoha's Yellow Flash in the war and it looked like they'd be putting one out on his son too. No one was going to want to tangle with Jinchuriki that was Namikaze's son; it'd be suicide to even try. She was betting that Iwa approached Konoha for a peace treaty rather than go up against Minato's progeny.

.~.~.~.

Three days later a group of Iwa shinobi approached Konoha's gate, making sure to keep their hands flat and visible as they came in sight of the gate guards.

"We're here to talk to your Hokage about a peace treaty," one of the Iwa nins said calmly as ANBU appeared around the foreign shinobi.

"We'll escort you there," the shinobi with the rabbit mask said as the ANBU cell confiscated the Iwa shinobis' visible weapons. There wasn't anything they could do about their ability to do jutsu – at least not without a significant chunk of time and the help of a competent Seal Master – so the squad would just have to settle for removing all of the more obvious weapons on their visitors before leading them to the Hokage Tower.

"This way," the rabbit ANBU said as he direct the visiting ninja towards the center of the village, making sure to guide the Iwa shinobi between the houses and not on the roofs of the buildings. They didn't want the visitors getting a free look at Konoha's layout from the roofs and sadly it was easier to keep track of foreign nin when they were among civilians.

When the Iwa shinobi and their ANBU escort reached the Hokage Tower, one of the accompanying ANBU slipped off to talk to Tsunade before the Rock nin reached her. The foreign shinobi were guided along the traditional path to reach the Hokage, all the way up the Tower to the large doors blocking entrance to the godaime's Office. Shizune guided the large group into the Hokage's room and firmly shut the door behind them.

"Godaime Hokage Tsunade-sama," the lead Iwa nin stated with a shallow bow. "The reason why we are here is quite simple: Iwa desires a peace treaty with Konoha."

"Is that so?" the busty blonde replied, wondering what had brought about Rock's change in opinion. It wasn't as if Leaf was currently at war with Iwa, but the two nations had never been particularly close, so the offer of a peace treaty – and the way they had addressed her – was quite surprising.

"Yes. We have no wish to go against Namikaze-sama again," another Rock shinobi said with a depreciating grin. "Once was enough."

"Namikaze-sama?" Tsunade echoed in shock. Minato had been the last Namikaze and Naruto bore his mother's name. "You wouldn't happen to mean a hyper blonde in bright orange, would you?"

"Of course. Namikaze-sama is almost a carbon copy of his father and every Iwa shinobi knows what the Yellow Flash looked like," the head of the Rock ninja assured the fifth Hokage.

That was true; Naruto was almost a mirror image of his father and she couldn't understand why the village of Konoha couldn't see it. The unruly bright blonde hair, the brilliant blue eyes, the open way they smiled, the shape of their face, and their obsessive love for the village. She'd sort of figured that Naruto would be the reason for the start of a war before he'd be the reason for a peace treaty, but he wasn't called Konoha's Most Surprising Ninja for nothing…

"And the terms of the treaty?" Tsunade managed to press out.

"As Namikaze-sama is the reason for the treaty, a lot of the terms understandably involve him, the most noticeable of which is the marriage of Namikaze-sama to several kunoichi from prominent Iwa shinobi clans. Of course, any interested Konoha kunoichi from clan families are also welcome to marry Namikaze-sama; we aren't trying to deny his heritage here in Leaf," the Iwa representative explained carefully. That was actually the one of two main reasons for the treaty, as Iwa was desperate to get their hands on Namikaze blood. The other reason was pretty obvious: Rock didn't want to go to war against the newer version of Konoha's Yellow Flash and get destroyed again. That definitely wasn't on their agenda. Not that losing a war was on anyone's to do list, but losing one to the same village because of the same bloodline twice in a row would be exceedingly humiliating for Iwa.

"Why don't you sit down and we can work out the rough details," the Godaime invited the lead ninja with a wave of her hand. "We can work out the fine details later, as Naruto won't be back for anther week. That way we can deal with everything at once and it'll give you enough time to bring your girls here before he gets back."

.~.~.~.

Tsunade looked over at the girls congregated in her office and their four chaperones before sighing exasperatedly. She didn't really want to know how many people had sent their daughters as wives or mistresses for Naruto. She knew the number of wives he was supposed to have, but that so many girls had came to offer themselves as mistresses to her gaki was a little shocking. He was expected to decide whether or not he wanted them and she didn't really think he would reject any of them…

The girls were whispering amongst themselves, establishing their pecking order and the position they would hold in Namikaze-sama's household.

"Just so you know, Hyuuga Hinata's been in love with him for years," Shizune cautiously told the group of Iwa shinobi. It was obvious to everyone except Naruto that Hinata had been in love with him for years and the Godaime's apprentice didn't want the poor girl being forced to watch as her crush got married to multiple other women, but not to her. They could pressure Hiashi into agreeing to the marriage for the treaty and because it was for a treaty, he couldn't really seal her bloodline because she wouldn't have as much power in the marriage if she was a Hyuuga branch member.

"So she's First Wife. It's not that big of a deal, we didn't think any of us would be First Wife anyway. Traditionally the position would go to the person Namikaze-sama was in love with, but if it goes to the person who's in love with him and that he's grown up with, then it's not that different," the pretty green-eyed girl said calmly.

They really weren't all that surprised by what the medic said; there was bound to be someone that Namikaze-sama was interested in or that was interested in Namikaze-sama, and they all knew from the start that they wouldn't be first in his heart. Heck, it was likely that they wouldn't even show up on his radar, despite the fact that they were all beautiful girls, but they knew that coming into this and accepted that they wouldn't find love in order to help their clans with an alliance to a Namikaze and the addition of the blood of a Namikaze their family clans. They hoped he would at least like them, that he would fulfill his duties to them, but they didn't fool themselves into expecting love from Namikaze-sama.

There was a knock on the door and Team 7 suddenly entered the Hokage's office. The girls suddenly began to whisper, their voices exceedingly obvious to the ninja in the room.

"Looks just like his father –"

"– better than his teammate –"

"– no way to mistake that face –"

"– he's actually pretty cute –"

"– wonder what his type is?"

Sasuke seemed to subtly preen at the comments, obviously thinking their multitude of girls were talking about him, while Sakura glared at the pretty girls for trying to get in her Sasuke's good books with compliments. Naruto looked around at the girls, cataloging them as non-threats before transferring his attention to Tsunade.

"Baa-chan! Did Sasuke get a new fanclub?" the blonde jinchuriki's voice rang out.

The same girl that was talking to Shizune earlier stepped forward and replied to Naruto's question.

"No, Namikaze-sama, we're here for you."

"We're your fanclub!" one of the girls in the middle of the crowd piped up before bursting into giggles.

Sakura fainted at the comment, unable to believe that so many girls would be interested in the dead last, while Sasuke began to glare at Naruto and stepped forward to refute the girl's statement.

"I'm sure you mean Uchiha-sama –" the dark-haired boy began when he was interrupted by the spokes girl for the future harem.

"We're not interested in anyone that isn't Namikaze-sama, especially not some jutsu thief with duck hair," the girl said with a sneer. Iwa didn't care about the Uchiha, there were ways to defeat them – hard to do, but possible – but they had never found a way to defeat Konoha's Yellow Flash. Therefore they decided to breed his bloodline into their village if they had the opportunity and the blonde had presented a wonderful possibility for Iwagakure.

At a subtle hand motion from the girl, several of the mistress candidates formed a line to her right, taking care to make their best features obvious, before the girl began to speak.

"So, who would you like to be your mistress?"

==o0o==

AN: …and that's the end of the plot bunny. My inspiration for it sort of just died, but it was a fun little ride while it lasted!


	3. 03: Lord Hokage

_Edited: 10/23/2010_

**Summary:** A collection of humorous Naruto short stories. 03: Naruto goes back in time – and so does every member of the Rookie 9. The Chunin Exam will be very interesting this time around…

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Naruto or any of the affiliated people, objects, jutsus, summons, or inventions. They are being used here for non-profit purposes and purely for fun.

==o0o==

_**Tips and Tricks**_

_**By Moirae Ma'at**_

==o0o==

**Lord Hokage**

The Rookie 9 surprised the Jounin that were watching the Chunin Exams when they exited the Forest of Death in perfect battle formation. Naruto was ensorcelled in the middle of the other Genin, his unruly blond strands making him stand out clearly. The teachers found it a little odd that all the clan heirs would be protecting the Kyuubi container and were discussing it amongst themselves when a sudden motion from down below caught their attention.

Sakura, Hinata, and Ino all quickly opened two scrolls and summoned their Jounin-sensei from where they had been lounging on top of the tower. The older shinobi appeared with a poof of smoke, only to be greeted by flaring chakra from all of the waiting Genin and a picture perfect defensive formation. Once more the Jounin were surprised to see way that the eight other Genin moved to protect Naruto as if it was habit, as if he was the most important one there.

The Genin reluctantly parted at an unseen signal to reveal Naruto, who began to walk forward. The jinchuriki was suddenly flanked by Sasuke and Sakura on his right and Shikamaru and Hinata on his left, the four other shinobi almost moving quicker than the Jounin could see. The five advanced almost as a unit and stopped close to their shocked teachers, obviously waiting for acknowledgement.

"Teams 7, 8, and 10 pass," Kakashi finally managed to say as he looked over the assembled Genin from behind his usual Icha Icha. He didn't think that his team had enough teamwork to pull something like that off, much less the whole of the Rookie 9. He'd have to keep a close eye on his team, make sure nothing untoward had happened to them in the Forest of Death. Kakashi's eye suddenly caught on a complex piece of sealing on Sasuke's shoulder, something so complicated that he could only make out a couple of the seal components, all of which had something to do with restraining power. He would have to look into that as soon as the first round was over and he could steal Sasuke away for one-on-one training – there was no way that Sasuke wouldn't pass the first round of elimination fights. Naruto and Sakura might not pass, but it was virtually impossible for Sasuke not to advance to the second round.

"Barely," Kurenai commented with a subtle frown. That behavior wasn't normal for her team, especially not the way that Hinata was moving confidently and Kiba was clearly deferring to Naruto. Last time she had seen her team the Inuzuka had displayed challenging body language towards the Kyuubi container and now he was treating Naruto like he would his mother, like the Uzumaki was an Alpha. Thankfully nothing had changed in Shino's bearing, although she could make out several of his bugs hovering around the group in a formation she hadn't seen before. It wasn't normal for the taciturn boy, as his bugs could get destroyed if his teammates weren't careful and she'd never thought of Shino as careless before.

"The Sandiame will be starting his speech in less than an hour. Follow me."

The group of nine subtly rearranged themselves, Naruto simply walking forward as Sasuke followed and their yearmates changed positions around them. Sakura slipped to the left of Naruto and Shikamaru rejoined his team on Naruto's right while Hinata slid back to her team on Naruto's left and the three teams appeared to close ranks around Naruto.

That was an old war formation, Asuma noted with surprise. It was interesting that they'd chosen that formation because there was no way that they had ever been in a war – the last one was when Kakashi was a kid – and that formation was so rarely used because it required close cooperation between the teams and acknowledgement of their roles in the arrangement. The formation was often used for important frontline fighters, as it was designed so that the heavy hitters in a group could do their part without worrying about friendly causalities while the two following squads dealt with stragglers and extracted information from the defeated. It was clear that Kakashi's team were the heavy hitters and the smoker assumed that his team would be extracting information while Kurenai's team would deal with stragglers. Asuma gave a mental shrug, at least everyone knew their places in the shinobi world – it would prevent them from dying because they took on missions they couldn't handle.

The formation changed once more when they arrived in the arena, this time resembling a formation several nin had performed in the past around various Kages. The way they arranged themselves simultaneously put all of the attention onto Naruto and allowed his eight person entourage to leap in front of him to protect him at any moment. The way they were focused on Naruto wasn't exactly normal and they shouldn't have known that formation because it was generally only used by escorts around their Kages. It was a secure way of displaying power without some of the drawbacks of other formations and it also allowed the person being protected to defend themselves if something went wrong, a rare characteristic in most shinobi formations meant to protect helpless clients. That was the main clue that the formation was used to protect Kages because you would never want to limit your Kage's battle power, not event to keep them safe.

The Sandaime gave the Konoha Nine a curious glance and seemed to communicate silently with their various senseis before quickly beginning his speech to prevent anymore last-minute entrants. The Hokage made a mental note to talk to those Jounin and Anko while he explained the purpose of the Chunin Exams. This time around the speech went interrupted as both Kiba and Shikamaru remained silent, already understanding the meaning behind the Chunin Exams.

As one the Rookie Nine shifted their attention to Kabuto when he began to speak, their faces disturbingly blank as they watched the white-haired shinobi resign from the Exam. Not even a muscle twitched out of place to reveal their emotions, something which attracted a lot of attention from the ANBU stationed around the Hokage. Several of the animal masked shinobi made mental notes to go talk to the white-haired Genin later, just to make sure nothing was wrong with him and to make sure he hadn't cast a genjutsu on the entirety of the Konoha Nine.

Naruto pulled Sasuke to the side and whispered something in his ear before letting his bodyguards arrange themselves around the balcony that they had chosen.

"Try not to do anything too _shocking_, okay Sasuke?"

The Uchiha's soft response was lost among the chatter of the other Genin on the stone balcony, Sakura and Ino arguing about Naruto's hair while Hinata seemed to be comparing notes on senbon with Tenten and Kiba was munching on food with Chouji as their teammates stood next to each other in a corner.

When Sasuke's name came up against Akado Yoroi, the Uchiha gave a dark smirk before hopping down to the arena and almost mockingly waiting for the judge to start the match.

The minute that the other male began to move, Sasuke engaged him in taijutsu, being careful to keep their contact brief so that the other Chunin contender didn't have a chance to steel his chakra. The dark-haired boy toyed with his opponent for several minutes in a beautiful display of taijutsu before Naruto's voice obviously caught his attention and he sent several small fireballs to occupy Akado so that he could look up at the blonde.

Naruto had a softly disappointed look on his face – almost, but not quite, reproving – and several of the Konoha Nine around him were almost glaring at Sasuke for upsetting the jinchuriki by messing with his opponent. The nin watching couldn't figure out why the group was so upset about Sasuke using the match as an exhibition of his ninja skills, but they were too proud of their prodigy to worry about the odd actions of his yearmates.

The Uchiha looked away from Naruto with a soft "hn" and the people in the stadium watched in shock as visible blue lightning gathered around the hand he used to reach out and touch Akado. Several nin guessed correctly that Sasuke used the other Genin as a conduit for his lightning to reach the earth, purposely frying some of his opponent's nerves in the process. The boy didn't seem to have much control over his elemental nature yet, but it was amazing that he could already manifest it, several shinobi thought with pride.

The careless elemental manipulation shocked the judge for a moment – that kind of stuff usually wasn't taught until after the kids reached Chunin – before he man managed to declare Sasuke the winner of the match. The last Uchiha loyal to Konoha managed to calmly saunter up the steps to the balcony where the rest of the group was before settling into a corner near Naruto. He made sure to ignore the way that Kakashi was trying to get his attention, subtly turning his body so that he couldn't see his sensei.

The stadium was abuzz with reactions to Sasuke's fight as the next set of names came up on the board. Aburame Shino was to face Zaku Abumi, who happened to have one of his arms in a sling.

The second match of the Chunin Exams went by quite quickly, as Shino sent his bugs to drain Zaku exceedingly fast, bypassing the Sound nin's revelation that he could actually use both arms. Zaku almost seemed to faint on his feet, quickly collapsing to the floor of the stadium, and a large swarm of insects rising from the Oto Genin to smoothly disappear into the Aburame. The bug nin then calmly walked back up to his yearmates' balcony and talked to Naruto, several of the Aburame's small Kikai hovering around the blonde before landing on his outstretched hands. The two Genin were quickly joined by Shikamaru, Sakura, and Sasuke for a quick discussion that several nin tried and failed to eavesdrop on. Those shinobi gave the group suspicious looks before directing their attention to the next match.

_Kankuro vs. Tsurugu Misumi _flashed up on the screen and the two Genin descended to the main floor of the stadium and began to fight. The balcony full of the Rookie Nine barely registered the way Tsurugu twined around Kankuro before the Suna Genin was revealed to be a puppet. Hinata, Sakura, and Ino took a cursory look while the boys were talking at the time Kankuro's puppet disabled his opponent by snapping his neck, the boneless Tsurugu barely escaping the match alive. Everyone on the balcony direct their attention to the board as they waited for next two Chunin contenders to be announced.

When the words _Haruno Sakura vs. Yamanaka Ino_ flashed across the screen, the two girls immediately hopped down from the balcony and settled into battle stances across from each other. They waited for the proctor to start the match before beginning to fight. They engaged in a battle of legs as their hands began to glow with chakra for a technique before they intercepted each other and prevented their enemy's jutsu from being completed.

"Limits," Naruto suddenly barked out across the stadium, shocking several of the other Genin and most of the shinobi present.

The fact that the two Genin in the stadium immediately disengaged and retreated to opposite sides of the ring was really what caught everyone's attention. That two of the vessel's graduating class should immediately stop fighting at his order was a little alarming, but the actions of the two kunoichi in the ring quickly occupied everyone's thoughts.

"No super strength," Ino said quickly.

That was interesting, as the Yamanaka had never been famous for strength…

"No torture techniques," Sakura responded.

Ah, that made more sense, the Yamanaka were famous within the village for ending up in T&I. So did that mean Sakura had the super strength? If so, where did she get it from? The only person from Konoha famous for super strength was Tsuanade and she hadn't returned to the village in years…

The two kunoichi nodded at each other in acceptance of the limits, but didn't reengage, instead looking up at Naruto for permission.

At the blonde's clear nod, the two kunoichi once more began to fight while the shinobi in the stadium pondered over their actions and conferred with their neighbors. The startling skill displayed by the two quickly recaptured their attention as Sakura used glowing blue chakra scalpels to fight against Ino's intensely visible and flying chakra strings. Those were not Genin skills in any way shape or form. Inochi knew he hadn't taught Ino chakra strings and as far as he knew, no medic nin had taught Sakura how to make chakra scalpels, so how the two kunoichi knew how to form the two weapons was a mystery.

The way they were fighting would be more appropriate in a friendly spar between Jounin who shared similar skill sets for different purposes, Ibiki mused to himself. That would make sense in light of the earlier restrictions, as Sakura's chakra scalpels and super strength were more suited to frontline missions were a medic would be useful and Ino's chakra strings and torture techniques would be more suited to bringing back prisoners to extract information from them. It would fit with their teams, as both the Uchiha and Uzumaki were shaping up to be frontline fighters while the Nara and Akamichi were more in line with capture missions. He'd have to see about recruiting the Yamanka girl for some practice after she lost the match, because if Haruno's team was a group of frontline fighters and she regularly sparred against them, then there was no way Ino was going to win without torture jutsus. Sakura had the control to disrupt the chakra strings and would be more used to physical exertion as she tried to keep up with her team, which in turn would give her more chakra. And there it was, the torture specialist noted, the Haruno won by knocking out her opponent with what Ibiki presumed was a sleep jutsu.

The pink-haired girl woke her blonde friend up with green medical chakra shortly after she was declared winner and the two climbed the stairs of the stadium to rejoin the rest of the Rookie 9. They stopped near Naruto and seemed to listen to him as he talked to them, nodding every so often in understanding. The blonde male seemed to end the conversation and the two girls went over to talk to Hinata and watch the next match between Temari and Tenten.

The Wind Mistress won hands down over Tenten, as the Konoha's Genin couldn't stand up to the Suna girl's wind jutsu. The match ended with the Weapons Mistress draped over the business end of Temari's battle fan and coughing up blood from the harsh treatment. Several nin noticed Naruto's glare at the other blonde, but dismissed it as some sort of petty rivalry against another village.

_Nara Shikamaru vs. __Kin Tsuchi_ appeared on the board next and was another quick match, as the shadow nin went against his lazy nature in order to finish the fight as soon as possible. The Leaf Genin swiftly created an earthen spire right after Hayate formally started the match and used the shadows created by the spike in order to ensnare and knockout the Sound kunoichi.

Several people looked askance at the Nara boy, surprised that he could manipulate the earth when his clan was famous for manipulating shadows. That was another elemental manipulation they hadn't been expecting to see and firmly placed the boy as a contender for Chunin rank.

After he was declared winner, Shikamaru slouched his way back towards the Konoha's Nine balcony at a slow enough pace to meet Naruto and Kiba as they walked down for their match after their names appeared on the screen. The Nara pulled Naruto aside for a quick conversation that barely lasted half a minute before the two loud Konoha Genin reached the floor of the arena.

The Inuzuka and Uzumaki squared off and Hayate announced the beginning of the match, but Kiba was noticeably hesitant to attack the blonde. The other shinobi in the stands noticed and made mental notes of that fact before the conversation between the two Genin grabbed their attention.

"It's just a spar, Kiba," Naruto said with a smile. "I won't be pulling anything out of the closet you haven't seen before and neither of us will be using more than _light_ techniques, right?"

"Right!" Kiba said with a laugh.

Tsume frowned at the nervous relief in her son's laughter, not exactly happy that he seemed afraid of what the dead last could do if Naruto got serious about the match. The pup shouldn't have agreed to light techniques – but then again, evidently their version of light techniques was different from hers, as Naruto was spamming the area with orange clones and Kiba was liberally taking them down with Gatsuga. Tsume wouldn't really consider that light sparring, but the two Genin didn't seem to think much of it as Naruto captured Kiba and Akamaru in a trap that some of his clones had created in the blurry chaos of their earlier actions. Kiba forfeited with a loose laugh and a ready smile, easily bumping shoulders with Naruto as they climbed back to the balcony, their low conversation caught by several curious shinobi.

"You really need to pay more attention to your surroundings – that's the fourth time I've pulled something like that on you and you didn't catch it," Naruto told the other boy.

"It's not like anyone else could spam that many clones," Kiba said with a roll of his eyes.

"Yeah, but they could send in enough ninja that you wouldn't notice more shinobi setting the trap," came the serious reply.

"At least I'd take the enemy down with me," was Kiba's answer to the challenging statement, an answer that Tsume approved of. If you were going down then you took as many of the enemy down with you as possible in order to help your teammates live for another day. That was Inuzuka pack mentality at it's finest; if sacrificing yourself meant that the rest of the pack was better off, then that was what you did, no regrets.

"Yeah, but I'd rather have you alive to fight another day than the dead bodies of however many shinobi you managed to take down with you," the blonde said, his sad eyes prompting the Inuzuka to nudge his companion in the ribs and whisper something about Hinata that made the blonde sigh and roll his eyes exasperated, the tension accumulating in his shoulders unconsciously releasing.

Naruto managed to have a quick conversation with Hinata after both her name and her cousin's name came up on the screen. Neji almost seemed to strut down to the arena floor while Hinata softly smiled at the blonde and floated down the steps to the floor, the air becoming heavier and heavier with moisture as she descended to the bottom of the arena.

Neji started the match with his traditional comments about fate and his hate for the Hyuuga Main House, but Hinata simply stood there with a calm smile as the air seemed to subtly shimmer around her, several Byakugan eyes seeing the near invisible haze of chakra hovering in the air around her form and the cold bright light of chakra condensed at her fingertips. The male Hyuuga attacked his cousin and the smaller girl easily deflected the blows, but refrained from counterattacking.

Hiashi looked disdainfully at his eldest daughter, simply seeing her actions as another failure – she could have ended the match in seconds by using the Caged Bird Seal, or baring that, the girl should have attacked the small openings that Neji still had in his form. This match proves it, Hinabi should be the Clan Heir, not Hinata – she was too weak to behave as a Hyuuga should. The older male ignored the soft way his eldest attacked and considered the slowing of Neji's limbs as a Branch House weakness as he subtly remarked on the other male's form to his youngest daughter.

Neji slowly began to pale and move slower and slower as the match went on, Hinata's soft touches evidently having an affect on the other Genin, although no on in the audience could understand what she was doing because she wasn't aiming for the traditional spots used in the Jyuuken. Eventually Neji stopped moving all together and simply fell over in the middle of the arena, Hayate waiting a few moments for the boy to get back up before declaring Hinata the winner. The dark-haired girl watched her cousin get carried out of the ring by medic nins before returning to Naruto's balcony and holding a quick conversation with the blonde Genin.

The words _Sabaku no Gaara vs. Rock Lee_ came up on the screen next and the green-clad Genin jubilantly bounced down the stairs to fight his opponent, the redhead from Suna who had shunshined into the ring with a swirl of sand.

Naruto's chakra began to flare as soon as the redhead from Suna released his sand from the gourd on his back, causing several worried looks from shinobi in the stands as they felt a tracing of Kyuubi's malevolent chakra within the flares. As the chakra wasn't doing anything, the majority of the shinobi transferred a large part of their attention to the match and watched at Gaara's sand destroy Lee in the ring until the spandex-clad Genin dropped his weights and began to open the Gates. Gaara eventually captured Lee in his sands and began to use the Sabaku Kyu to crush his opponent.

A seemingly random flare of chakra from Naruto caused Gaara to pause just long enough for Gai to pluck his young student out of the sand right before the redhead crushed the other Genin's legs in his jutsu. The Suna boy seemed to mutter something about "blood" and "mother" before eventually returning to the balcony he had been sharing with his siblings.

Accoding to the board, the next match was between the Oto nin Dosu Kinuta and Akimichi Chouji. The two opponents made their way down to the stadium floor in a timely manner and settled into fighting stances while they waited for Hayate to start the match.

The first thing Chouji did was pull the earth up around himself like armor and swing an oversized fist at the other Genin, quickly knocking him out and ending the fight before the other male could use his sound jutsu to disorientate the Akimichi heir.

"Ahh, Naruto, Sandiame-sama would like a word with you," Kakashi said as he reached for the collar of Naruto's jacket to stop the Genin from leaving the stadium only to find the boy protected by Sasuke and Hinata while Sakura and Kiba looked to be preparing to attack him.

"Okay," the blonde agreed with a shrug, turning to walk towards the Hokage Tower and ignoring his sensei, the other Genin from the balcony clustering around him in an apparently random manner as he talked with Sakura, Sasuke and Shikamaru. The Genin didn't hop onto the roofs to travel, instead calmly walking down the roads at a relatively even pace, even if it was slightly slow for a group of shinobi. The group reached the Tower and was ushered up to the Hokage's meeting room, the Jounin making sure that their students weren't imposters or assassins as they traveled up the Tower.

Naruto was flanked by Sasuke and Sakura on his right and Shikamaru and Hinata on his left when he entered the Hokage's office. The jinchuriki immediately headed towards the chair in front of the Sandiame's desk and pulled it further away from the desk before comfortably sitting down.

As soon as Naruto was settled Sasuke leaned against the right side of the chair while Shikamaru slumped on the left and the two girls casually rested their forearms on the back of Naruto's chair. They made an intimidating sight as the rest of the Rookie Nine arrayed themselves around them, the group making sure that the only way to get to Naruto was from the front where the blonde could see everything that was going on.

The pose of the first five seemed well practiced to Asuma, as it was too smooth to be spontaneous. The older male compared it to the way the Fire Daimyo's guards had staged themselves when he was at court and sadly found that the Genin's arrangement was better – it perfectly covered Naruto without the help of anyone else and simultaneously allowed the four to secretly advise the blonde without leaving their posts. It was surprisingly well designed and they were scarily casual in the execution, intimidating the person Naruto was talking to without a second thought. The scariest thing was that they had done it even here in the Hokage's office, as if the Sandiame was not their Hokage but a possible – probable – enemy.

Sarutobi noted the odd formation himself, a little surprised that the whole Rookie Nine had followed Naruto to his office when he had only asked Kakashi to bring him the blonde. Of course the sensei had followed their students, and Iruka was in the room when Naruto arrived and wouldn't leave calmly now that he knew the Hokage was talking to the Kyuubi container. Well, he could question the jinchuriki just as well with everyone else here as he could alone – it wasn't like he was going to be asking invasive questions or anything similar. Still, the Sandaime made a discreet hand seal beneath the desk and sealed the room off from eavesdroppers, just in case something happened that he didn't want anyone else hearing about.

"Naruto, what exactly happened in the Forest of Death?" the monkey summoner questioned calmly.

"Nothing much," Ino replied for the other blonde with a shrug.

"You're not Naruto," Iruka reprimanded the kunoichi.

"Nothing much," Naruto answered, using the same shrug as the Yamanaka had. "There was this weird guy, then this creepy guy with a long tongue and the strange guy and his team who showed up before bushy brows and the pretty boy, then this dude with glasses and those other people who kept trying to hide behind the trees the whole time."

"Names?" Kurenai prompted gently.

"Don't know 'em," Naruto said with a negligent shrug, slouching a little further into the chair.

"As shinobi of Konoha you are required to tell your Hokage anything that might help or endanger the village," Kakashi said with a frown, directing his comment to the whole group of Genin while looking at Naruto disapprovingly from over his book.

"We _do_ tell our Hokage everything," Sakura said with a bright smile that she aimed at the adults in front of them.

"But you haven't answered my questions," Sarutobi pointed out shrewdly.

"Mendōkusei," Shikamaru said with a sigh. "Our Hokage knows exactly how we got those skills."

"Sandiame-sama does _not_ know where, how, or from whom you nine received the skills you displayed in the preliminary matches of the Chunin Exam," Iruka told the group with an impressive frown. If the Hokage knew then he wouldn't have asked the Jounin-sensei about the Genin's new skills or the children themselves.

"Whoever said it was the Sandiame Hokage?" Naruto said with a mocking little smile before he casually leaned back in the chair he was sitting in. Hinata reached a hand over and massaged the blonde's shoulder for a moment before resuming her previous stance and once more resting her forearms on the chair back.

Several Jounin sat back in shock at the Kyuubi's container's question and sank into their own private thoughts until the Sandiame Hokage himself managed to pose another inquiry to the Rookie Nine.

"Is it the Godaime then?"

Sasuke's disdainful "hmph" in response to the question directed the attention of the room towards him before Sakura actually answered.

"No," the pinkette said with a smile and a little laugh, "it's not Godiame-sama."

"The Rokudiame then?" Asuma questioned casually. If it wasn't the Godiame, then logically they should be talking about the Sixth Hokage.

Kiba immediately bared his teeth in answer, a growl rumbling in his throat as Sasuke's eyes flashed to bloody red of the Sharigan and Sakura cracked her knuckles in a menacing manner. Killing intent began to fill the room before being brought back under control, but just those few moments sent shivers down the backs of the older shinobi that were questioning the teens.

"Never the Rokudiame," Hinata said in a hard, cold voice, the veins of her Byakugan bulging around her white eyes.

Okay, obviously not the Sixth Hokage then. The Godaime would have to be careful about who was chosen as their successor if they didn't want a mutiny or an assassination on their hands, Sarutobi thought with morbid humor. He could definitely believe that his group would murder whoever took the hat as Rokudaime Hokage if they didn't like them.

"The Seventh Hokage?" Kurenai asked next, wary about provoking another rage in the group of Genin. She really didn't want to repeat the experience. That had been a lot of killing intent for nine _Jounin_ to produce, much less nine Genin – and the killing intent of nine children had been even worse than the one time she'd fought on the battlefield against Iwa.

"Does it really matter which Hokage?" Naruto said in reply as he stood up, sounding a little exasperated with all the questions. "They're loyal to a Hokage and therefore they're loyal to Konoha. That's all that matters."

"That is certainly true," the Sandiame said with a smile for the blonde. "Why don't you all go home for the afternoon and I'll send your sensei for you tomorrow before we have another meetings."

Naruto nodded in agreement before turning towards the Hokage's door, the other Genin gathering around him as he moved, showing Sarutobi a firsthand example of the formation that the Genin had used when they left the Forest of Death, Naruto protected in the middle of them.

Once the Genin were out of the room, Kakashi looked up from his book and mentioned something he'd noticed about Naruto's words.

"Does anyone else find it odd that Naruto said they were loyal to a Hokage and were therefore loyal to Konoha, not that they were loyal to Konoha and therefore were loyal to the Hokage?"

A look of dawning comprehension appeared over Iruka's and Kurenai's faces as they both reached the same conclusion.

"They're loyal to their Hokage over Konoha," Kurenai stated lowly, shock apparent on her features.

"They're only loyal to Konoha because their Hokage is," Iruka said softly, a stunned look in his eyes.

The Hokage, his three Jounin, and the lone Chunin spent some time thinking this over before the Sandiame suddenly looked up and spoke seven words into the silence of the room that shocked everyone present.

"Naruto said 'they,' he didn't say 'we.'"

==o0o==

AN: And that's the end of that plot bunny! It was a fun ride while it lasted, but inspiration stopped here and I'm concentrating on advancing the some other stories at this time.


	4. 04: Genin Kage

**Summary:** A collection of humorous Naruto short stories. 04: Someone once said that Naruto would have to be Kage-level before he would be promoted to Chunin. They didn't know how right they were…

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Naruto or any of the affiliated people, objects, jutsus, summons, or inventions. They are being used here for non-profit purposes and purely for fun.

==o0o==

_**Tips and Tricks**_

_**By Moirae Ma'at**_

==o0o==

**The Genin Kage**

A Genin team from Iwa was about to enter the door to the Chunin Exams when they noticed a tall white-haired man lecturing a blonde in blindly bright orange and black and paused to listen. It was always good to learn more about your opponents and they swore they'd seen that Jounin somewhere before…

"Now, Naruto, remember you aren't allowed to use Rasengan, or Rasengan Shuriken, or Odama Rasengan, or Sage Mode, or your wind element, or sealing, or any jutsu above B-rank – and for Kami's sake no red chakra!" the tall man with the red striped on his cheeks enumerated exasperatedly. What were they thinking making Naruto take the Chunin Exam? He was going to tear these guys apart without clearly defined limits – and considering it was Naruto, it wasn't likely he was going to pay attention to any limits anyway. The Konoha Council was full of idiots, Jiraya thought, shaking his head at their stupidity.

"I can use Kage Bunshin, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, you can use Kage Bunshin," Jiraya answered wearily – he wasn't going to deny his student his most common jutsu – "but no other A-rank or S-rank jutus, okay, Naruto?"

"Does that mean I can't use Kage Shuriken?"

"No, it doesn't, but –"

"What if I run into the teme or the snake bastard?"

"Just – just behave, alright? The Kages are coming for the third round of the Chunin Exams –"

"Baa-chan's going to be here?" Naruto interrupted his teacher.

"Yes, Tsu –" the white-haired male tried to answer before being interrupted once more.

"Yatta! Are Sakura, Sensei and Sai coming with her as well?"

"I don't know Naruto. Why don't you go join the other genin taking the exam and try not to cause too much trouble?" Jiraya said, giving up on trying to limit the damage his blonde student would cause in the upcoming Exam. Kumo would just have to deal with it, as there really wasn't anything he could do to stop the force of nature that was Naruto. The brat had enough power to blow a ninja village off the map and he'd started to form his own spy network, so no matter how stupid the blonde behaved – and the kid could act pretty dumb – Naruto had a reason and probably a plan. His apprentice had grown dangerous over the years and still hadn't lost his carefree and friendly attitude, although people often underestimated the blonde because of the way he acted.

"Okay," the blonde answered with a shrug, just happy to get away from Ero-senin when he was lecturing. He already knew all the rules and the pervert was boring! It wasn't like he was going to use something like the Rasengan Shuriken against some poor Genin, but it really wouldn't be fair to limit him and not limit the other Chunin hopefuls…

The blonde turned and walked towards the door, bypassing the group of Iwa Genin that were staring at him. He guessed they were just nervous about the Exam, but he'd already taken one and if he wasn't ready to become a Chunin after the past three years with Ero-senin, then he wasn't ever going to become a Chunin. If he didn't pass the Exam, he'd just become the first Genin Kage in history – he wasn't going to give up on his dream no matter what!

The Iwa Genin looked at each other in shock – it wasn't exactly normal for a teacher to lecture their student, their _Genin_, about what jutsu they _weren't_ allowed to use in the Chunin Exams. The fact that the white-haired male had a virtual laundry list of restrictions for his student – he didn't even bother to list exactly what jutsu, just told his student _not_ to use A- or S-rank jutsus – was a bad thing for all the other contestants. Especially since it didn't look like the other Genin had a team, which meant he was taking on all the other Genin in the Exam without backup and his teacher was _allowing_ it and even going to far as to _limit_ him. The blonde had to pretty strong to pull that off and not expect to end up dead at the end of the Exam. The Iwa team looked at each other and decided they were going to avoid that blonde like their lives depended on it, simply because their lives probably did. They didn't want to challenge someone who probably knew more high ranked jutsu than their teacher did – and he was a ninjutsu specialist.

The three-man team from Rock entered the room for the Chunin Exams and found the same blonde from earlier arguing with a Genin from Mist. They pitied the poor Kiri shinobi, he really didn't know what he was getting into…

"So who taught you?" the dark-haired boy asked, annoyed at Naruto's relaxed attitude and the easy way he had entered the room without any teammates.

"Jiji, Iruka-nii, pervert-sensei, the closet pervert, Ero-senin – oh, and Fluffy," the blonde listed out carelessly as he ticked off his fingers before draping a hand over his stomach.

This guy was stupid, Naruto thought. Why would he give out information like that? Sensei's passed on techniques to their students and it was possible to determine a student's skills based on their teachers. Why in the world would Naruto want any of the competition to know what he could do ahead of time when that just meant they would have more time to devise a way to beat him? Look at Sasuke: fire and Sharigan from the Uchiha, lightning from Kakashi, snakes and swords from Orochimaru. Pure chakra manipulation like the Rasengan mixed with wind manipulation – both of which the Sharigan couldn't copy –and the toad summons were the best way for him to fight the teme. This new guy was from Kiri and used a huge sword, so he was probably trained by one of the Swordsman of the Mist and lacked a large jutsu repertoire – besides, wind could slice through water any day.

Jiji? Pervert-sensei? _Fluffy_? Genin all around the room thought. That kid certainly had some interesting teachers…

"Hmph." That wasn't anything to be proud of – the ninja the blonde'd been taught by didn't even have any titles! He'd been taught by one of the Swordsman of the Mist, the purple-haired boy thought proudly. This no-account Leaf-nin couldn't boast anything as great as that – he was taught by someone named _Fluffy_!

"Any good fights?" Well, he might as well gain information about his competition, the Kiri ninja thought. Even if the blonde wouldn't be any competition to begin with, information was information and that was always useful.

"Yeah! That mummy guy in Wave, the fake hunter-nin, the mummy guy again, those nin in the weird suits, the fake advisor's shinobi, the snake's science nin, the snake himself, the fate guy, the crazy sand rat, the fishman, the teme's brother, baa-chan, the snake again, the four-eyed traitor, the four creeps, the bone guy, the teme, Ero-senin, the teme again, the blonde with the creepy hands, the puppet guy, the teme once more, the teme's new fanclub –" Naruto enthusiastically listed off the people he fought since he became a Genin, careful not to say their names of his opponents. What would be the fun in that?

"And their names would be?" the purple-haired shinobi from Kiri interrupted snidely.

"Z-something, Haku, what's-his-name-again, I don't think I knew their names, I know I didn't know those guys, didn't know the next group either – didn't want to –"

Naruto wasn't even trying to remember their names – why should he give away information like that for free? – and was beginning to have fun finding ways to avoid saying the actual names of some of his more famous opponents. Zabuza's name would be well-known to a Kiri nin trained by another Seven Swordsman and everyone knew who Orochimaru was unless you had lived in a hole in the middle of the desert for the last forty or fifty years. Even then you probably would have heard about him in one way or another – the snake had certainly angered enough people over the years.

"So you didn't fight anyone of consequence," the same shinobi from earlier said as he tried to suppress a laugh. This blonde hadn't even fought anyone interesting. The sand rat was probably just some mouse and the puppet guy was probably from a festival or something – how pitiful!

"No, I'm pretty sure what's-his-name had a bad reputation and the snake's pretty famous, all things considering, even if he is a pedophile. Besides, the sand rat's well known too, and so are the four hat and cloak idiots that keep popping up. 'Though I still can't remember what the name of teme's brother is…"

Naruto knew he'd fought some pretty high-level people – Itachi was an S-rank missing nin after all, just like all the members of Akatsuki – but name dropping like that would just piss people off and no one here would believe him anyway… He'd rather be thought of as an idiot anyway, misdirection and all that – after all, it'd worked well in Konoha, hadn't it? Besides, it was fun to confuse people like this!

Naruto's Kiri antagonist was stopped from responding by the entry of several Cloud Jounin, one of which swiftly announced the beginning of the Chunin Exam and brusquely separated the Genin into their teams before explaining the first test.

"You're going to match the three random facts listed on this sheet of paper to one of the teams in this room. Once you have made your final selection you will come and tell me the team and I will tell you if you are correct. If you fail you will be dismissed. Come collect your papers."

Naruto went up to the Kumo Jounin in charge and grabbed a paper from the desk before retreating to a corner to read the sparse words.

"_Water user. Eight siblings. Stage fright."_

Well, that wouldn't be too hard; there was a Suna kunoichi with a miniature version of Gaara's gourd strapped to her hip and a slightly larger one secured on her back that was hiding over in another corner with her teammates, a boy lounging in the corner with a sneer on his face and another boy who had an astonishingly healthy looking tan face that didn't go with his trembling hands and stuttering voice.

It was obvious that the Suna girl was a water user – who would expect someone who lived in a desert to be a Suiton specialist? – and the way she was luxuriating in the moisture rich air of Kumo was also a pretty big clue to her element. Besides, he could hear the water swishing around in her gourd. The boy in the corner was exasperated with his teammates behind that sneer in the same way that Iruka had looked at Naruto after his pranks during his Academy days – it was all in the subtle tilt to his eyebrows and the way his chakra didn't feel upset-annoyed, rather exasperated-fond-annoyed like he was used to dealing with the idiosyncrasies of his team. And the third boy was obviously wearing makeup to disguise his immediate pallor at being in the Chunin Exams, as he could hide the shaking hands and people might just think he had a stutter like Hinata did as a Genin – but to Naruto it was obvious that the boy had stage fright. He was probably a puppet user the same a Kankuro – he looked like he preferred to stay of the battle and fight with tools instead. It was pathetically clear to Naruto that the team he was supposed to find was that trio of Suna Genin in the corner of the room.

The blonde walked up to the Kumo Jounin that had explained the meaning of the Exam's first test and looked at a corner near the Suna trio while lowly describing the position of the team he was supposed to locate. There was no way that he was going to give away what team he was identifying by looking directly at them or by speaking at a whisper among shinobi that are trained to listen to whispers to get information from them.

"Two corners over from where I'm looking, the Suna group. The girl is the water user, the boy in the corner has eight siblings and the boy with the tan has stage fright."

The Jounin gave a soft frown and handed the jinchuriki a small piece of paper from a pouch on his hip. The Chunin candidate walked back to his own corner and opened the piece of paper to read it before giving an excited smile and shredding the paper into tiny pieces.

"_Your goal for the next part of the Exam is to steal that team's scroll while protecting your own. If they fail, you are to steal it from the team described on their paper."_

This would be fun! He was good at stealing things and that team was surprisingly wide open for a group of shinobi. It wouldn't be hard to lay his hands on the scroll when they got distracted trying to get their prey's scroll, but he'd take a peak at their paper just in case. Naruto didn't know how many of the other Chunin hopefuls would catch the fact that they also had to figure out their prey's target and so on and so forth, just in case some of the teams failed. It would suck to take someone's scroll and protect it the whole time, just to be told you failed the test because that wasn't the right scroll. He'd check a few teams forward from his target's prey, just in case.

It was quite easy to form a tiny spider Kage Bunshin and send it along the wall to pear over his prey's shoulders before dissipating. Their description pointed to the guy he'd been talking to earlier, the one with the big sword who _had_ to be overcompensating for something. Heh, that team would be even easier.

Naruto relaxed in his corner and waited until the Kumo Jounin declared the end of the first Exam, occupying his time until then identifying which team had which other group of Genin. He knew which teams he'd be going after if something went wrong in the first test, but it was nice to know who everyone else in the room would be pursuing, just in case. Gathering the information was absurdly easy in comparison to creating his own spy network, but at least he now knew the chain of people who could possibly be coming after him, starting with the group who actually had his facts. They were a group of Grass Genin that he had no problem deciding to humiliate if they bothered him for his scroll, but he'd like to take on the person hunting them if they failed – it seemed like the Suna redheaded girl that reminded him of Temari was also a wind user and it would be fun to take her on with his own wind mastery.

It didn't look like he'd get to fight the Suna kunoichi who was also a wind user, as the three random facts that the Kusa team were using to identify him were exceeding obvious due to the fact that they were from his academy days and he purposely hadn't bothered to change some of those things so people could recognize him. He'd swear people in Konoha wouldn't know who he was if he wore all black instead of his usual orange – and the one time Naruto had ventured into his home village wearing a black outfit with a white overcoat, he'd had over sixty people faint on him, most of them ninja around Kakashi's age or older. It had been decidedly odd and he'd decided never to wear all black ever again.

It was a little sad that Kumo had based the random facts off official records instead of experience or mission reports – but it was always possible that Kakashi and Ero-senin hadn't bothered to update his personal records because they were lazy like that and the rest of Konoha would want him to have the worst records possible so he wouldn't get any ninja jobs. Really, he had a rare hair color as there weren't a lot of blondes in the shinobi nations, he still wore some bright orange – especially after that fiasco when he was 14 – and his chakra was wild enough when he wasn't paying attention to it that it wasn't hard to think he could be a dead last. Well, he had been, but they'd be in for an interesting surprise when they tried to confront him for his scroll – there was no way he wasn't passing the Chunin Exam this time around!

The team he was supposed to steal from also passed the first Exam, correctly identifying the Kiri team with the Genin who had the large sword, as did the Kusa Genin who had Naruto, but over half of the teams failed the basic information gathering and deduction test. It was a little sad that they couldn't figure out who their teams were, but it was mostly pathetic because some of the clues were so obvious Naruto could have figured them out half-asleep and ramen deprived – three years ago, before the trip with the super pervert and his infiltration training.

The Cloud Jounin ushered the Genin that passed the first test to a large mountain in the middle of a barren and rocky field before outlining the parameters of the second exam.

"You have 10 hours to retrieve your scroll from the moment you are released into the mountain. You can exit from any point on the mountain. All paperwork should have been filled out previous to this point – we are not responsible for your death. Jounin will lead you to your entry point," the head Kumo nin said with a deadpan voice.

Naruto was shown to an entrance in the middle of the mountain and carefully marked where his targets and the team pursuing him were entering the mountain as well. As soon as the blonde was firmly ensorcelled in the tunnel's shadows he spammed the area with small animal Kage Bunshins and sent them to explore the mountain in groups of three.

The blonde sat in the shadows near his mountain entrance and waited until several of his bunshin had dispersed themselves to provide him with a surplus of information about the team he was hunting and several of the other groups. Naruto gave a cunning little smile and formed a new bunshin in order to pass orders on to his other shadow clones.

Around half an hour later eight of his small animal Kage Bunshin appeared out of the dark, four of them dragging small scrolls behind them. He reached down to pick up the scrolls as his shadow creations disappeared into thin air with virtually inexistent smoke traces. Suddenly the jinchuriki knew that one of the scrolls was from the team he was hunting, another was from the Grass team chasing him and two of them were from completely random teams that had been particularly unguarded about their information scrolls.

Once he had the scrolls in his hands, Naruto simply stepped outside the mountain and located one of the Kumo shinobi. The blonde made sure the Jounin was involved in the Chunin Exam before handing over his scrolls and standing near some of the more official-looking people at the base of the mountain.

Naruto occupied himself for approximately the next eight hours by mentally listing his spy contacts in his head and thinking of new ways to contact them as he practiced chakra control by spreading a thin layer, virtually colorless layer of chakra across his skin. As he waited he fiddled with how the chakra interacted with different parts of his body: lengthening his nails, sharpening his teeth, hardening his skin, and other such minor modifications that were physically hard to see.

Eventually all of the groups had exited the mountain and gathered at the base to hear the proctors talk.

"If you don't have a scroll, leave. Teams with scrolls, you need to come up to the table and present your scrolls before stating your name so you can be given a number and matched with your future opponent," a Kumo Jounin said with a bored tone.

All of the teams immediately checked their scrolls, several becoming quite disappointed and annoyed when they discovered that their scrolls were missing. This number included both the team he was hunting and the team that was supposed to be hunting him, of course. Several teams had to be forcefully removed when they wouldn't leave on their own, but eventually the only people left in the area had passed the second of the Chunin Exams.

The Genin approached the table in groups of three to turn in their scrolls and Naruto joined the line about halfway through, patiently waiting for his turn at the small table.

"Uzumaki Naruto," the blonde said casually when he finally reached the table, his words catching the attention of a nearby female who quickly scurried out of sight. He received his number before moving away from the table so several other people could get their own numbers.

Once everyone had been assigned their numbers for the third part of the Chunin Exam, several Jounin began to randomly draw numbers out of the box and pair them up – a different way than Konoha had used to assign first round opponents but equally effective. Part way through the event a small, shy-looking girl rushed up to the head Jounin and murmured something in his ear before stepping aside and appearing to wait nervously.

At the end of the drawing, Naruto was the only one with a number that hadn't been called by the Jounin in charge and was about to approach the man when the timid looking girl approached him instead.

"Umm, Uz-Uzumaki-san, I don't think anyone actually realized you were in this tournament –" the small dark-haired girl said before she was interrupted by the blonde.

"Nah, Baa-chan knew," Naruto said before causally waving towards the Godaime Hokage, who exasperatedly nodded that, yes, she had known about his entry into the Kumo Chunin Exams.

Several Genin looked at Naruto in shock because this blonde kid just called the _Godaime Hokage_, the Slug Sannin, Tsunade-sama the Legendary Medic Nin herself, _baa-chan_ – and got away with it! There were legendary tales about what happened to people who called her old – they generally ended up in the hospital being tended to by their attacker, irony of ironies – but Tsunade-hime had just looked annoyed at the boy and nodded at the nickname.

"And Ero-Senin nominated me," the blonde Genin continued as he pointed at the Toad Sannin.

Jiraya glowered at Naruto for a moment before giving a smile and flirtatious wink at the girl talking to Naruto; after all, she was pretty cute and he always flirted with any halfway decent looking female. Maybe he could get her to model for his next Icha Icha? She had a nice figure…

The Genin followed his pointing hand and their jaws dropped even further, because the impertinent blonde boy had just called the Jiraya-sama, author of the infamous Icha Icha, a pervert-hermit and all he got in return was a mild glare. Most Genin would be severely punished for calling their teachers such names – much less someone as well known as the Toad Sannin – but evidently the kid was allowed to get away with it.

"Gaara's here, despite the fact that his Genin aren't competing in this round, so he knew I was here, and so did Yukie-chan, since she's here too and she doesn't even have any ninja in the Exam," Naruto said, pointing in turn to the Kazekage and the Princess of the Land of Spring, both of which acknowledged him in their own ways. The Suna jinchuriki let his sand wave round him in rising patterns in acknowledgement of his fellow demon container's comment, while the Lady of Spring gave a cute wave and blew a flirty kiss towards Naruto.

The other Genin in the area simply gave up trying to understand how a fellow Genin could call the jinchuriki Kazekage by his first name and use the "-chan" suffix for the D_aimyo of the Land of Spring without being reprimanded. _

"Well, yes, Uz-Uzumaki-san, maybe they knew you would be here, but there _are_ several other people who could have ben-benefited from this information. Jiraya-sama only submitted that his student was entering, not that _y-you_ were entering the Chunin Exams. Several villages would have preferred to make their Genin wait for the next Exam rather than force their young shinobi to face the G-Genin Kage," the dark-haired female messenger replied. "Your reputation is well known, Uz-Uzumaki-san. It is rare that a G-Genin is listed as an S-class threat in the Bingo Books of over four shinobi villages."

"I've never quite figured out why I have an S-class ranking –" Naruto began to speak before the girl interrupted him. He knew why he had the rank, but there was no reason he had to _admit_ that he knew why…

"N-n-nevertheless, Uz-Uzumaki-san, we'd like to offer you the Chunin promotion without requiring you to fight another G-Genin. You could do a demonstration of one of your more common techniques, if you want to, but several Kages are prepared to arbitrarily withdraw their G-Genin from the Exam rather than have the possibility of them fighting you – i-if you don't accept the offer of promotion, of course," the messenger stuttered her way through informing the blonde ninja.

"I'll forgo the demonstration, if you don't mind, and just take the promotion," Naruto said after a quick look up at Tsunade and Jiraya. "But I reserve the right to fight anyone who challenges me to a fight without repercussions."

"That is acceptable, as long as the fights are within reasonable limitations, Chunin Uzumaki," the girl said with a smile and a small bow, her stutter disappearing now that she had completed her assigned task. "Now, if you would please join your Kage in her box so that the Exams can continue."

"Sure," the blonde said with a careless shrug and shushined into the box, where the Toad Sannin ruffled his hair and the Slug Sannin bopped him on the head. The jinchuriki settled down beside his Hokage and watched the Genin in their fights, mostly bored at the sub-par skills being shown. He was a little too used to sparring against his age-mates – who were all happily Chunin or Jounin by now – or fighting against the Akatsuki – who were all S-class missing nin that wanted to capture and kill him. Seeing these weak Genin was quite an eye-opening experience, simply for the fact that it made it obvious – he'd knew before the Exams, but it'd never been this absurdly clear – that he really shouldn't be a Genin. Naruto was simply too powerful to be a Genin, no matter what the Konoha Council had to say on the matter. And now he was a Chunin and they couldn't do anything about it because Kumo had hosted the Exam and they couldn't influence other countries due to their status as a foreign, _civilian_ council. Their hands were tied unless they wanted to either start a war with Cloud or their own Hokage – neither of which were a good choice.

To Naruto's disappointment, it turned out that the annoying Kiri Genin with the overcompensating sword ended up winning the third part of the Chunin Exam and decided to rudely interrupt the beginning of the ending ceremony in order to arrogantly walk over to towards the balcony containing Naruto and the Sannin.

"I challenge you to a one-on-one fight," the winner of the Chunin Exams said as he pointed his sword at Naruto, the metal glinting in the weakening sunlight. He'd just won the Chunin Exam, so he was the equal of a Chunin and he could take the stupid blonde boy that had been _given_ the new rank instead of fighting for it.

Naruto looked over at the current Mizukage, but the leader was pointedly looking in the other direction, tacit permission for Naruto to beat the upstart swordsman down to size. Naruto gave a mocking little smile to his opponent before descending to the arena floor. The blonde was pretty sure that this stunt by the Kiri shinobi would prevent him from becoming a Chunin, despite the fact that he won the exam, because only idiots purposely challenged people they knew could kill them with their eyes closed.

The Konoha Chunin waited until the proctor started their match before creating several clones and sending them at the Genin. He wanted to see more of what the other boy's sword style looked like – he was pretty sure that the kid didn't use the same style as Sasuke, Kisame, or even Zabuza did…

The blonde spent a few minutes observing his opponent as he gained the memories from his clones before moving in to engage the other shinobi personally. Naruto avoided the first few swings before he noticed a pattern to the Genin's swings and began to act on that knowledge. The fact that the Leaf Chunin could predict what move was coming next before the kid even started it was a pretty obvious sign that the Kiri boy wasn't used to fighting real people – and sadly, fighting for his life was how Naruto got most of his experience – as the other male couldn't switch between moves very well to follow the blonde's movements. It was clear that the swordsman was following a set kata and hadn't yet learned to integrate the kata moves separately before combining them in new ways. Eh, it was the other boy's loss, the jinchuriki thought with a shrug before beginning to talk to his opponent.

"Really, you've got nothing on Zabuza," Naruto said as he ducked a sword swing. "And you're nowhere near Kisame – boy is his Sameheda is a pain! He has way too much fun make that sword eat my chakra for it to be normal."

The Mist shinobi gritted his teeth, but didn't reply, instead redoubling his attack on the Chunin, who simply kept dodging his every move.

"Who did you say you trained under again?" the blonde asked as he leaned backwards under the sword and deflected a kick with one hand. "Because you obviously aren't doing them any justice."

"Shut up and stand still, you idiot!" the Mist Genin screamed as he lifted the sword above his head and swiftly brought it down.

Naruto stepped to the side too quickly for the Kiri shinobi to follow and shook his head mockingly.

"I think whoever it is will need a new apprentice pretty soon, because frankly you suck at this – and you're embarrassing your country in front of potential clients. That's not really a smart idea on either count, and neither is embarrassing your teacher. I can't believe that you're someone's private apprentice…"

"I'm going to kill you!" the Kiri Genin roared in anger as he began to swing his sword around wildly.

Naruto carefully stepped into one of the swings and knocked the sword from the Genin's hand as he made the other male fall to his knees. The blonde caught the falling sword effortlessly and swung in around to hold it against the Kiri boy's neck. Six other blondes popped into existence in the next second and held their kunai to vulnerable spots on the other male, most noticeably near his eye, the skin above his cerebellum, and the area beneath his utility belt.

"Do you yield?" the Chunin asked, his face neutral as he stared down at the Mist shinobi.

The other boy gave a grudging nod in response and Naruto released his opponent, the blonde's clones disappearing into small clouds of smoke as their maker handed the sword back to the Kiri boy and turned to leave.

Naruto heard the Mist shinobi stand and then felt the displacement of air caused by a large object moving towards his head. Instinctively blue chakra flared to life in his hands as he turned to meet the downward swing of the sword with a fully formed Rasengan.

The ball of swirling chakra tore into the metal, shavings flying towards the Kiri Genin until the Rasengan broke the large sword in two, leaving only a few inches of metal above the hilt and the tip of the sword on the ground. Naruto stopped the swirl of terrifying chakra mere centimeters from the Genin's face, the Kiri nin's bangs moving in the slight wind caused by the rotating chakra.

"I wouldn't do that again if I were you," the Konoha shinobi said with a cold look in eyes that belied the smile on his face. He left the Rasengan in place until his opponent paled and surrendered, finally realizing just what the swirling chakra could do to him – it had carved through his sword with an ease he didn't even want to think about – and how close he had come to losing his life.

Naruto once more turned his back to the defeated Genin and shushined back to the Konoha balcony in order to sit down, ignoring the both the rest of ending ceremony and the whispers he could hear running through the crowd.

"– no wonder he'd Jiraya's apprentice, he uses the Rasengan without a second thought –"

"He looks like a spitting image of the Yondiame Hokage with that spinning blue chakra in his hand –"

"– should be called the Swirling Ball of Death –"

"– I hate going up against that technique. There's no way to block it because it carves through _everything_ –"

"– wouldn't want to be that Genin –"

The jinchuriki blocked out the noises around him and concentrated on what he'd given away in the fight. Okay, people knew he could use Kage Bunshin – anyone who ever even encountered him in passing, sparing or otherwise, knew that – and enemies knew he could use the Rasengan, which really wasn't to big of a surprise considering that Jiraya had been his teacher. It was almost expected that the Toad Sannin would teach him that move, or rather, would teach someone that move so it wasn't forgotten in the annals of history. Satisfied that the audience didn't know the rest of his skills, and therefore could not formulate a way to beat him, the blonde finally allowed himself to fully process the fact that he had passed the Exams.

Naruto still couldn't quite believe it – he had finally made Chunin and all it had taken was four S-rank entries in the Bingo Books of the main shinobi villages. That wasn't bad, he'd thought it might take eight or nine entries – and sadly there weren't even that many villages with Bingo Books, so he had been wondering how to rise to Chunin rank for a couple of weeks before Jiraya had announced he was attending the Chunin Exams. Either way, he had been an S-rank Genin with Kage level skills and now he was an S-rank Chunin with Kage-level skills. Life was good; people were acknowledging him and his skills.

Don't get him wrong, Naruto wasn't going to stop training and he was still going to get that hat from Tsunande, but now at least he wouldn't be a Genin Kage, he'd be a Chunin Kage. Although now that he was a Chunin they'd have to change the Bingo Books because they couldn't call him the" Genin Kage" if he wasn't a Genin anymore and "Chunin Kage" just didn't sound very good…

.~.~.~.

Two weeks later Naruto was thinking about what his new nickname might be as he waited in line for Kiri's new Bingo Book. The blonde paid for his copy and quickly flipped it open to his entry before smiling and laughing as he walked back to his apartment.

They'd simply called him "Kage."

==o0o==

AN: And that's the end of that plot bunny. Thank you to the people who read this and a special thank you to everyone who has reviewed - I sent PMs with responses before posting the chapter.


	5. 05: Crimson Currents

**Summary:** A collection of humorous Naruto short stories. 05: Kiri has been trying to get their hands on an Uzumaki since before Whirlpool was founded and now they have their chance.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Naruto or any of the affiliated people, objects, jutsus, summons, or inventions. They are being used here for non-profit purposes and purely for fun.

==o0o==

_**Tips and Tricks**_

_**By Moirae Ma'at**_

==o0o==

**Crimson Currents**

"_Hey… You eyebrowless freak…" Naruto said as blood dripped from his mouth. "Put _this_ in your Bingo Book. The shinobi who will one day become Hokage…"_

_The blonde slowly raised his headband and firmly tied it in place as he glared at Zabuza._

"_Uzumaki Naruto!"_

The Kiri shinobi frowned at the proclamation and took a closer look at the kid. The Konoha genin had blonde hair and blue eyes when most Uzumaki had hair the crimson of blood and vibrant eyes that shaded from brilliant gold to glowing green, but the kid had claimed the name and no one refuted him.

If anyone from the Leaf group had Uzumaki blood in them, he would have guessed it to be the pink-haired girl, but she lacked the fire inherent to the Uzumaki bloodline. Zabuza had never seen _any_ Uzumaki – including a three-year old girl who had armed herself with a sharpened paintbrush at one point – give up without a fight like the Konoha kunoichi had encouraged the blonde to do. The determination that got the blonde back his forehead protector was pure Uzumaki and that meant that Zabuza was one lucky bastard; Mist offered quite the reward for an Uzumaki.

He couldn't knock the kid out and make off with him without releasing the Copy Ninja and there was no way that the jounin would let him kidnap the blonde without causing trouble. And that wasn't even counting the trouble the Uzumaki would cause on his own once Zabuza was on his way to Kiri.

The missing nin hated running from a fight, but that seemed to be his best option. The Leaf shinobi knew nothing about Haku right now, but he would likely lose that advantage soon after the jounin escaped from his water prison; if Haku remained a secret, then retrieving the Uzumaki would be a lot easier on all accounts. And it wasn't like the blonde would hard to find if he was guarding the bridge builder…

Zabuza, his clone, and the water prison around Kakashi disappeared just as Naruto mentioned "going wild" against the Kiri shinobi. The jounin caught himself on the water using his chakra and all four ninja looked around cautiously to determine where the bandage-wrapped man had disappeared to.

"We so would have won," Naruto said with a frown after Kakashi signaled the all-clear.

"He'll be back, Naruto," Kakashi said as he patted the blonde's spiky hair. "He's under contract to kill Tazuna and Zabuza has never been known for going back on his word, even as a missing nin. Kill the person who hired him, yes, but only once the contract had been completed."

"That's _real_ comforting," Sakura said with a frown. She most certainly did not want to face the missing nin again in any capacity and Kakashi made it sound inevitable that they were going fight again.

"Don't worry about it," the jounin said as his eyes curved into happy upside-down crescents. "You'll be training while we wait."

.~.~.~.

Haku followed Zabuza back to Gatou's hideout and waited until she knew they were alone before asking Zabuza-sama why he had left the fight.

"That kid is an Uzumaki, Haku, and that means he's Kiri's one and only 'get out of jail free' card. If we come back with that kid then we'll be forgiven everything. Mist has been trying to get their hands on Uzumaki since time immemorial and I think the kid's the only one left. Supposedly they were all killed thirty or forty years ago, but somebody obviously missed one of the kid's parents, and, well, given the fact he's from Konoha, the kid's parents are probably dead if he's wearing that much orange on a combat mission. Pity he doesn't have Kanotomi Fudo."

"Zabuza-sama?"

"Do you know why the Seven Swordsman of the Mist were formed Haku?"

"No Zabuza-sama."

"They were formed for one reason only: to attract the attention of an Uzumaki. That Clan is famous for their containment seals and ability to control water, fire, and wind. The majority of the sealing arts are most likely lost because the kid doesn't have even one of the Uzumaki protection amulets, but I would bet one of your ancestors married an Uzumaki at one time or another and it resulted in your kekkei genkai.

"Only one Uzumaki in a generation could ever control all three elements and they inherited the sword Kanotomi Fudo from their predecessor before taking over the Clan. The Seven Swordsman each use a sword that imitates some aspect of Kanotomi Fudo; my Kubikiribōchō imitates the sword's ability to continually reform itself from blood. One of the other Swordsmen has a sword called Samehada that sucks up any chakra it encounters, although Kanotomi Fudo itself can drain both chakra and blood from an opponent.

"The whole thing was an attempt to suck up to the Uzumaki that only partially worked, as they became friendlier but still refused to marry into any of the Kiri shinobi families. That pissed off the Mizukage and he started undermining Uzu; the man eventually found a way to destroy the village and ended up taking out most of the Uzumaki in the process. I heard the idiot was pissed off for months afterwards and the only reason –"

Gatou's sudden entrance into the room with two bodyguards made Zabuza pause and the greedy businessman took it as permission to start berating the two missing nin.

"The 'Demon of the Mist' is a coward that runs away from children; how pathetic. You couldn't even manage to kill a stupid old man –"

"You will keep your dirty tongue from slandering Zabuza-sama," Haku interrupted with a cold smile as she killed Gatou's samurai bodyguards, "or I will remove it for you. Permanently."

.~.~.~.

Zabuza and Haku cautiously approached the bridge staging area, taking extra care to suppress their chakra and remain hidden behind various pieces of scenery. They finally stopped at a point where they could see the Konoha genin climbing trees supervised by their jounin-sensei.

The blonde charged a tree at the edge of the staging area in an attempt to climb it, but the moment his foot touched the bark a loud crack echoed throughout the area and the Uzumaki went flying backwards. The tree, on the other hand, broke at the base where Naruto's chakra had impacted and began to fall towards the partially-completed bridge.

Kakashi rushed through a series of hand seals and a spike of earth pierced straight through the falling tree and stopped it before it could crash into the staging area or the bridge itself. The jounin cocked an eyebrow at the blonde and Naruto simply smiled nervously in return.

"You're going to practice somewhere you can't break the bridge," Kakashi said as his eyes curved into a smile. "Down there." The jounin pointed past the edge of the bridge. "On the water."

The blonde shrugged his acceptance and haphazardly made his way to the bottom of the cliff. He couldn't really break anything down here besides dirt and there wasn't much damage he could do when the rocks were that massive. Naruto pushed his chakra down to his feet and stepped out on the water. He wobbled for a minute before the water firmed up under his feet and it felt like he was walking on solid ground again.

Zabuza and Haku moved to a place where they could watch the blonde easier. The elder missing nin frowned; it would be easier to kidnap the kid down here, but the blonde would no doubt cause quite a ruckus and he wasn't really looking forward to taking on Sharingan no Kakashi in addition to an Uzumaki.

Naruto explored the strait for a little bit by wandering around on the water before jumping up. When he landed, his feet sunk down into the water a little bit, but it quickly firmed and became almost solid once again. The blonde spent some time practicing various moves on the water before Sasuke and Sakura suddenly appeared at the edge of the water. Evidently the two had progressed past tree-walking – or Sasuke had badgered Kakashi into letting him prove he was better than Naruto – and were ready to practice on water.

The Uzumaki cocked his head curiously and wondered what was happening on the bridge, utterly oblivious as the chakra-infused water curled to form stairs to the top of the cliff. The blonde looked at the construct suspiciously before shrugging and climbing the stairs to take a peek at the bridge staging area.

Zabuza smirked and had to muffle his laughter when the water of the stairs formed a mouth and snapped at Sasuke's foot as the Uchiha tried to climb the stairs behind the blonde. "Definitely an Uzumaki."

The pink thing immediately started yelling at Naruto and the bottom of the stairs roiled in reaction to her words, but the moment the Uchiha tried to climb the stairs again, part of the chakra-saturated water formed a series of sharp strands that darted towards the two genin. Sakura and Sasuke barely managed to dodge the razor-sharp filaments and quickly backed away from the swirling strands.

Naruto evidently satisfied his curiosity, because he ventured back down the stairs and watched as the water curled around him happily.

"You're not related to Fluffy, are you?" the blonde asked as he stared at the strands accusingly. Water wasn't supposed to move like that. "He causes enough trouble without any extra help."

Zabuza frowned at the Uzumaki's words and motioned for Haku to follow him back to their base. It was pretty clear that he wasn't going to be able to kidnap the kid now, so he'd have to inform Haku of the new plan as soon as he was sure no one would be able to eavesdrop on them.

"Haku, I want you to sleep with the blonde. If we can't kidnap him, then at least we can get a kid from him as Plan B. Mist'll be happy enough with that and the information that an Uzumaki's alive to let us come back without any problems. It would help that you'd be the mother of the child, which would mean they'd happily ignore the fact that you killed Mist shinobi in favor of the fact you're providing an Uzumaki heir for Kiri."

"Yes Zabuza-sama."

"And make sure he doesn't know who you are."

"Yes Zabuza-sama."

.~.~.~.

"You haven't slept with him yet, have you?"

"No Zabuza-sama."

"Good. The blonde spammed a bridge with clones to protect a village he only visited once; I'd hate to see what he'd be capable of in a few years if he found out a kid of his was 'kidnapped.' I don't think Kiri would be left standing and I know we'd be among the first killed. We've only got one choice if we want that pardon."

"Zabuza-sama?"

"We're going back to Konoha with that kid to convince him to move to Kiri. You _are_ friends with him, aren't you Haku?"

"Yes Zabuza-sama. He seemed to purposefully ignore any type of romantic overture I made earlier and you've had me spend quite a bit of time with him."

"And?"

"I think he thinks of you as friend because you're my 'friend' and I'm his friend," Haku explained with a delicate frown. "He says he refuses to judge people based on fights; it's the attitude after you're done fighting that matters to him and he thinks you have to be somewhat nice because I think of you as a friend."

"You spent the whole time talking about me, didn't you?"

"Not all of it; we discussed precious people almost as much as I talked about you."

"That doesn't count Haku and you know it. _I_ am your 'precious person,' so you really did spend the whole time talking about me."

"Naruto-kun talked much more than I did, Zabuza-sama."

"But you only talked about me," the Kiri missing-nin pointed out. "No wonder he didn't accept any overtures; he probably thought you were in love with me."

"You _are_ my most precious person, Zabuza-sama."

"I know, Haku, I know," the Mist shinobi said as he waved a hand dismissively at his apprentice.

"…but Naruto is slowly becoming precious to me as well," the girl continued slowly.

Zabuza looked up sharply at that comment. "Are you a 'precious person' to him as well?"

"I believe he considers all his friends to be 'precious people' and he has declared us to be friends several times since we first met."

"The he also considers me to be a 'precious person' because I'm your 'friend?'"

"I believe so."

"Then let's go visit our new traveling partners," Zabuza said with a wide smile. "Come Haku."

"Yes Zabuza-sama."

.~.~.~.

Zabuza could feel several Konoha shinobi eyeing his sword and scratched forehead protector suspiciously as he walked with Team 7 down the streets of Konohagakure, although the citizens seemed to be glaring at Naruto instead of him. Well, that would make their job easier; if the people didn't like the Uzumaki then it shouldn't be too hard to get the kid to move to Kiri. The kid's list of 'precious people' was pretty small according to Haku, so hopefully they could persuade a few of them to move with the Uzumaki or convince the kid that he could visit Konoha whenever he wanted if Kiri wasn't at war with the village.

A few constant chakra signatures blatantly followed the group all the way to the Hokage Tower and distributed themselves throughout the building as Team 7 and company made their way up to the top floor and the Hokage's office. The blonde practically bounced up the stairs and Zabuza eyed the kid warily. The boy had been hyper enough about having a new friend in Haku on the way back from Wave, but this was even more extreme and the swordsman wasn't sure what could cause such excitement in the Uzumaki when they were simply going to see the village kage.

"Jii-jii, we've got guests!" Naruto trumpeted as he flung a set of doors open after brushing past an annoyed secretary and the two amused ANBU at the door. Team 7 followed behind the blonde, Kakashi making sure that both Zabuza and Haku entered the room before him.

"Hello Naruto. Kakashi, Sasuke, Sakura," The Hokage added with a nod. "And these would be?"

"These are my friends Haku-chan and Bandages. They're from Mist," Naruto volunteered cheerfully, "or well, they were, but evidently Bandages tried to off the Mizukage – has that every happened to you jii-chan? – and Haku's parents had some personal issues so she ended up with Zabuza sort-of on accident. Can they stay?"

"We'll see, Naruto. Did anything else interesting happen besides meeting your new friends?"

"Well, Fluffy helped out for a little bit at the end, but spent the whole way there complaining about dad and trying to change my hair color again. He's still not happy that dad failed to protect mom despite what Fuzzy calls 'that stupid teleportation trick' – which he offered to teach me because he wants to see the look on 'that furry ape's face' when I use it."

A low "Do it! Do it! Do it!" was whispered from one supposedly empty corner as the Hokage started coughing. Well at least he knew where one ANBU was, Zabuza thought with a silent grimace. Who knew how many of them there were in the room; the swordsman had honestly expected to be in an interrogation room by this time and was sincerely surprised that the Hokage was making small talk with the Uzumaki instead of putting the Kiri traitors in the hands of his interrogation unit.

"Is there anyone the beast _does_ like?" Sasuke muttered as he rubbed the still-healing scar across his eyes. Being near Naruto when he was 'red' was not advisable for the Uchiha; the blonde evidently saw him as an enemy in that state and had tried to burn his eyes with chakra. Maybe he could set the teen off and aim him at Itachi? The blonde could do a_ lot_ of damage when he was red…

"He likes my family – well except for dad. And he says he doesn't mind the 'sand rat' or the 'blue furball,' whoever they are, and he _really_ loves the taste of seafood – particularly octopus and seahorses, although I don't think I've ever seen anyone eating one of the tiny things before."

"Well I don't think you'll be seeing the 'blue furball' soon, but I'll see what I can do about the 'sand rat'," the Hokage said with an odd smile as he scribbled a note down on a nearby piece of paper. "Was that all?"

"Oh, and their old employer tried off everyone on the bridge," the blonde added as he waved a hand at Haku and Zabuza. "I think that's everything."

"Kakashi?"

"The bridge is named after him," the silver-haired ninja deadpanned.

"I'll add it to the list," the Hokage said with a sigh as he pulled out a scroll. "Anything else?"

"Standing request on the kid."

The Hokage winced and pulled out a new scroll. "Limit?"

"Once a month. Uzumaki heritage again."

"Well, at least his father's hasn't popped up yet. I'll see what I can do about the schedule, but Naruto's on Tora duty for the next two weeks after such a long unexpected absence. That pushes back the chase and the field exercise, which in turn infringes on the annual memorial and planting of Uzu by the new tenants."

"I get to visit Uzu again? Yatta!" Naruto exclaimed as he punched the air. "That festival rocks!"

"By the Sage," Zabuza swore as everything finally fell into place. "By the Sage of the Six Paths himself, we're lucky we didn't try to kidnap that kid."

"Zabuza-sama?"

"_That_ is a jinchuriki, Haku," Zabuza said lowly as he pointed at the celebrating blonde. "A jinchuriki that calls his kage 'old man' and not only _gets away with it_ but has permission to enter his kage's office whenever he pleases. Kidnapping a random genin orphan wouldn't cause a war, but there would be no way to avoid one if a jinchuriki was kidnapped. And of course he's not just some random jinchuriki, he's the vessel of the Kyuubi and evidently rather important to several groups in the village. And may the Sage help us, he just so happens to be the son of Iwa's Bane and Uzu's Flame; I'm surprised he's not using her sword."

"Kid's a little too hyper to be trusted with Kanotomi Fudo right now," a low voice said from behind them as senbon tickled the back of their necks. "And if you don't want to die, you won't ever repeat what you just told your apprentice."

"Not a problem," Zabuza admitted easily and the shadowy presence behind them immediately disappeared along with the senbon. Evidently there were valid reasons why Konoha was famous for its hunter nin if an ANBU had just snuck up on him unaware and the ANBU were considered the more obvious of the two special forces.

"So," the Sandaime said after Naruto finally quieted down, "what are we going to with our new guests?"

"Can't they just stay with Team 7, jii-jii?"

"We'll see, Naruto. They need to visit T&I first, or I can't let them wander around the village." If the two foreign shinobi passed the interrogation, then he'd stick Kakashi on them to make sure they didn't cause any trouble.

"Puzzles or Hebi-chan?"

"Probably Ibiki, Naruto; Anko is a little too excitable sometimes."

Naruto immediately turned around to dig in his pack and pulled out a scroll that he handed to Zabuza. "Give that to Puzzles when you see him, will ya? Tora duty pretty much means I won't see anyone for two weeks and Puzzles has been trying to get a copy of what Fluffy's been saying for months now."

"Sure, kid, why not," Zabuza said with a shrug as he tucked the scroll into a pocket of his pants. He'd drop it off for the kid and hopefully get in the blonde's good books for it.

"Team Seven, you're dismissed. Kakashi, I expect the written report to be _on time_ tomorrow. Naruto, I'll see you later tonight for ramen like usual," the Hokage said as he waved his shinobi out of the room.

Shortly after Naruto left, a tall man with a Konoha forehead protector was escorted into the room by several ANBU. "Hokage-sama?"

"Naruto came home with some new friends," the Hokage explained. "I assume you know who they are."

"The man is Momochi Zabuza, Kiri missing nin and member of the Seven Swordsmen; the girl I believe is listed as an accessory to Zabuza in the Mist Bingo Books."

"That what I thought," the Hokage said with a sigh. "Well, Zabuza-san, Haku-san, this is Puzzles –"

"This belongs to you then," Zabuza said as he fished out the scroll and tossed it at the man with a scarf over his head.

Ibiki's immediate reaction was to erect a wall in front of himself and the Hokage to prevent the scroll from damaging the kage. The scroll made a hollow 'thunk' as it impacted the wall and fell to the ground.

"It's from Naruto," the Sandaime had to explain to his interrogation expert before Ibiki would lower the wall and pick up the scroll.

"'Fluffy's' ramblings according to Naruto. Enjoy."

Sarutobi stifled a laugh at Zabuza's sarcastic words before finally finishing his introduction. "As I was saying, this is Puzzles, otherwise known as Morino Ibiki, head of Konoha's Torture and Interrogation."

"The kid's got some odd friends," Zabuza muttered as he surrendered his sword to an ANBU. "Anything happens to that and I'll find a way to gut you even if I'm dead."

The masked nin nodded in response and went to help his fellow ANBU remove senbon from their numerous hiding places in Haku's outfit. The girl already had a large pile of senbon sitting next to her and it slowly continued to grow as the ninja found more and more senbon scattered around her form.

"You really can't disarm me completely," Haku said calmly after a few minutes. "I have a kekkei genkai."

"And of course Naruto doesn't even mention that," Sarutobi said with a sigh. "Which one is it?"

"Hyouton."

"Well that changes things; I'll have an offer for you in a couple of hours, but if you both would go with Ibiki, he'll be able to deal with the intake exam and we can work on the paperwork afterwards."

"My sword?"

"You'll get it back after the intake exam," Ibiki stated wryly as he guided the two ninja out of the office. "Once we're sure you're not going to harm anyone in Konoha."

"And by harm," one of the ANBU said and Zabuza could hear the smile in the masked shinobi's voice, "he really means kill –"

"Kidnap –"

"Poison –"

"Crip –"

"You should understand," the interrogator cut in with a hard smile, "Konoha suffers no enemies within her walls. Ever."

.~.~.~.

"Now remember, Naruto-kun, Zabuza-sama said to be careful with Kanotomi Fudo," Haku said with a gentle smile as she walked with Team 7 into the clearing in front of the Forest of Death. The heads of a Mist genin squad jerked up at her words and focused on the group intently. "You don't want to destroy the forest again."

"I'll remember, Haku-chan."

"We'll make sure he does," Saukura assured the medic-nin heartily. She had seen things cut, flayed, smashed, drowned, burned, boiled and frozen by that sword since Naruto started learning to use it under Zabuza's tutelage and she had no desire to see half the forest go up in flames again. It turned out that fire liked Naruto a little too much for some reason that all of the adults avoided explaining and Kanotomi amplified that affiliation into a raging inferno at the slightest suggestion.

Sasuke hadn't liked the fact that Naruto had a higher fire affiliation than he did, but after the first time the blonde set the forest on fire by accident the dark-haired avenger had dropped the subject. The other male had looked at the blaze Naruto had created – that several water dragons from Zabuza and Kakashi had failed to quench – wondering if even the legendary Uchiha black fire would be able to stand up to Kanotomi's fire because he would swear there was a fox in the fire that was roaming around and destroying trees. The image gave him chills because that fox was the same vicious red that Naruto became on occasion and Sasuke had no desire to have his eyes assaulted by that red chakra again; once was more than enough.

.~.~.~.

Orochimaru watched from the sidelines as the blonde Konoha genin fought the Mist shinobi who were interest in his sword. The Uzumaki easily blew them away and ended up shredding a the part of the forest he was standing in as a result. Sawdust rained down on the three Leaf ninja as the bloody Kiri genin slammed into one of the few remaining trees and Naruto searched their opponents for an Earth scroll.

The Snake Sannin took a close look at the way the blonde wielded Kanotomi Fudo and shook his head. There was no doubt that he wanted Sasuke for a host, but there was no way that he was going to attack the wielder of that sword. Kushina had almost frozen his most precious possession off with that thing by accident the first time she sparred with the Yondaime as friends and Orochimaru had tried his best to avoid closing with the crazy redhead ever since. Her blonde offspring had even less control, which, contrary to all reason, meant more damage from Kanotomi Fudo than could normally be expected. The sword was a vicious piece of work without a firm hand to guide it and there was a reason why the Third Mizukage had attacked the Uzumaki at Ushigakure right after current clan head had died and Kushina had yet to receive any formal training in swords at two years of age. It was probably the only way the man had succeeded in wiping out most of the clan.

The blonde brat, on the other hand, clearly knew how to cause massive amounts of damage with Kanotomi and he'd given up trying to block the damn sword after it had almost burned through Kusanagi by accident the one time he'd practiced swordwork within a mile of Kushina. Thick earthen walls could delay the effects until both Kanotomi and her user ran out of chakra, but the Kyuubi container was a virtual battery and Orochimaru would bet that the kid could keep a firestorm raging for days if anyone gave him a reason. The invasion would certainly provide adequate motivation and Orochimaru had no desire to witness the devastation caused by Kanotomi Fudo and a raging Uzumaki Clan Head first-hand; there were valid reasons why such accounts did not exist and the most common result was the death of the observer.

.~.~.~.

Before the Hokage could begin speaking to the genin assembled in the arena at the end of the Second Exam, a Mist jounin appeared on the platform and approached the Sandaime. "Kiri demands the return of the sword called Kanotomi Fudo from Konoha; failure to do so will result in war with Mist."

"I'm sorry, but the sword doesn't belong to Konoha."

"Your genin is the one holding it," the Mist jounin said blandly.

"Yes, well, you see…"

"It's a family heirloom, bastard; back off," Naruto snarled with one hand on Kanotomi's hilt. His teammates immediately started to back away from him carefully and made sure to take their Konoha comrades with them. Sasuke and Sakura had no desire to be at ground-zero for one of Naruto's explosions with that sword; the last time they'd been near, the two of them had been set on fire, flash-frozen, and drowned in a torrent of water while Naruto looked practically untouched by the explosion. Kanotomi would _not_ harm it's bearer under any circumstances, but the blade was rather vicious towards anyone or anything else that happened to be in range.

"I highly doubt that," the Kiri shinobi said with a sneer. "The sword belongs to Kiri."

"I am an _Uzumaki_," Naruto said and everyone could hear the implied 'idiot' at the end of the sentence. "Kanotomi Fudo is mine by blood."

"Prove it."

"Gladly." And the smile on Naruto's face made the Jounin shiver as he watched the teen draw the blade from its sheath.

Sasuke and Sakura had dived for cover the moment Naruto said the word blood and started to put as many earth walls as possible between them and the blonde. The day Naruto had inherited his mother's sword, Zabuza had told him to drip his blood on the blade to claim it properly before the former Kiri ninja had used shushin to get as far away as possible as fast as possible. The blonde had simply shrugged and slit his hand with a kunai so the blood would drip down onto the sword. The moment Naruto's blood hit the blade, it began to glow and Kakashi barely had time to throw up an earth wall before elemental chakra exploded from Naruto's position. The wall had started to fail immediately, some parts melting in the blistering heat, others breaking off in the battering wind, and yet more parts slumping to the ground due to the water beating against the wall. Kakashi had immediately grabbed his students and used shushin to get all three of them out of the area moments before the wall failed. They had watched from afar with some other shinobi that were interested in the flare of elemental chakra before returning to the area once Kakashi was sure it was safe. They had found Naruto completely untouched in the middle of a seventy-foot circle of devastation; the wall had completely disappeared.

The two genin couldn't leave the ring this time without being disqualified from the Chunin Exams, so they intended to put as much earth between them and Naruto as possible. Sasuke had asked Kakashi for the earth wall jutsu just in case something like that happened again and he'd taught it to Sakura because his elemental affinities were fire and lightning. Thankfully the pinkette's affinity seemed to be earth and the girl was quick at raising walls. The two sheltered the rest of the Konoha ninja in addition to themselves and continued to put up walls even after the group was squished together in a corner.

Up in the stands, Kakashi immediately started to form his own earth barriers as soon as he heard Naruto's declaration. His urgency prodded several other jounin into action and their balcony was quickly well-protected by layers and layers of earth. Shinobi in the stands from both Konoha and other villages looked at the two entrenched groups and started to put up their own walls as fast as possible. Evidently the blonde kid was going to do something extremely destructive if the preparations of the two groups were any guide for the level of damage that was going to occur.

Naruto bared his fangs at the Mist ninja in a parody of a smile before he bit his thumb and let a drop of blood fall onto Kanotomi Fudo. The moment the blood touched the blade, elemental chakra blasted out of Naruto and filled the air around him.

Strands of fire crackled from the sword like lightening and twisted across the arena while threads of boiling water curved through the air and pierced the ground; gales of wind exploded off the blade and ripped nearby objects to shreds and orbs of ice split open the ground before shattering into razor sharp pieces. And Naruto simply stood there with a cherry smile on his face as he completely decimated the arena, remaining utterly untouched due to the thin chakra shield encasing his form.

The Mist jounin that had demanded Kanotomi on behalf of Kiri was caught in the blast radius and screamed as water smashed him to the ground before ice froze him in place. Frostbite set in quickly due to the freezing temperature of the ice before the Kiri ninja was bombarded by fire that melted the ice and gave the jounin second-degree burns. Once he was free, he flailed around trying to put out the fire and failed to avoid the razor-sharp winds that added deep cuts to his repertoire of injuries.

The elemental maelstrom slowly ground to a halt and returned to the sword, but it was several minutes before anyone dared to peak out from behind their defensive walls and see if the barrage was over.

Once the Mist contingent was certain that Kanotomi Fudo had died down, the group played a quick game of janken and the loser shushinned down to pick up their unconscious comrade from in front of Naruto.

"The sword's yours," the jounin said before quickly transporting the injured man and himself out of the arena. There was a reason the Mizukage had attacked once the Uzumaki Clan Head was dead; Kanotomi Fudo was nigh invisible in the hands of the Head and only suicidal idiots challenged the sword's bearer once it was confirmed that they had the right to use it.

Naruto re-sheathed his blade before walking over to a cracked wall of baked earth and tapping it with the scabbard. The wall immediately fell apart and revealed three shinobi with Sand forehead protectors to the blonde's surprised eyes.

"Sorry!" Naruto smiled at them in apology. "Thought you were someone else, Panda," the teen added absently as he walked toward the second earth wall in the arena and repeated his actions.

This time he found the rest of the Konoha genin and waved his scabbard at Sasuke and Sakura in greeting. The two other members of Team 7 sighed in relief at the sight of the sheathed sword and cautiously moved out from behind the wall to see what damage Naruto had caused this time.

.~.~.~.

"Wasn't that Kushina's Kanotomi Fudo?" a Konoha shinobi said as he peered around at the damaged arena from behind his shattered earth walls. He wasn't going to be caught in the open if the Uzumaki decided to unleash that thing again.

"I think so," one of the older jounin said consideringly. "Certainly causes the same kind of damage."

"Then I'm not fighting the kid ever. Sparing once with Kushina was enough to put me off ever going against that blade again."

"I think a lot of people are going to reevaluating their opinion of the kid after this. That sword is absolutely brutal."

"Do you remember that guy who tried to use it when Kushina purposefully dropped it in a spar?"

"You mean the guy who was burned alive on Training Ground 15?"

"Wasn't he an Uchiha?"

"Yeah; the guy thought the Uchiha could control any flame in existence and decided to use Kanotomi Fudo to prove it."

"Didn't Fugaku encourage him to do it?"

"That was everyone's best guess because he was at the fight, but it was never confirmed."

"Why would the guy take a risk like that?"

"Remember, it was before she met Namikaze and someone spread that rumor that she'd date whoever beat her in a fight. I guess the Uchiha wanted Uzumaki blood to strengthen their fire talent," the jounin said with a shrug.

"Wasn't worth it."

"How did Kushina end up with Namikaze anyway?"

"Well, you remember Kushina and ramen, right?"

"That explains where the kid gets it from," someone muttered. "He's a bottomless pit."

"And everyone knows how Namikaze felt about seafood –"

"Gimme, gimme, gimme," someone said and made grabbing hand motions.

"Yeah, exactly like that," the older jounin said with a smile as everyone around him laughed. "So, Ichiraku decided to try out a new flavor of ramen that involved seafood and Namikaze heard about it. Kushina was already there when he arrived, and well, her temper, his mouth… it wasn't a very good first meeting."

"I still remember the spar afterwards. It was before Namikaze got to experimenting and he won it by the skin of his teeth."

"Isn't Kushina the reason that he started to work on speed to begin with?"

"Oh yeah; she kept aiming for his family jewels every time they sparred and he was getting worried because she was getting closer and closer to removing them permanently."

"You don't think…" one of the shinobi said as he looked at Naruto speculatively. The kid had Kushina's facial structure combined blonde hair and blue eyes; it was possible.

"No way in hell," a jounin said flatly. "Kushina stopped spending time with Namikaze at least a year before the Kyuubi attacked."

"I guess not then," the ninja said with a shrug as he leaned back into his seat and ignored the conversation that continued around him as he settled in to think. Kushina had red hair, which was recessive, and Nauto's hair was blonde, which was also recessive; just about the only way for Naruto to have blonde hair was for his father to have had blonde hair as well. Any dark shade of hair would have been passed on to Naruto because it was a dominant gene and the only blondes in the village were the Yamanaka. He'd never seen the redhead near a Yamanaka male and Namikaze did have blonde hair and blue eyes; by the Sage of the Six Paths, it was possible that Naruto was Namikaze's son and if that was true, there were going to be some severely unhappy people in the stands. Someone out there was going to make the connection and it wasn't going to be pretty when they confronted Konoha with the idea.

.~.~.~.

The Sandaime had allowed the Chunin Exams to continue despite the devastation Naruto had caused in the arena and the matches for the next phase of the Exam would occur in one month.

Currently the Hokage was speaking with the Mist jounin that had upset the Uzumaki at the Exams and had summoned Naruto upon the man's request.

"Kiri apologizes for any insult that was offered to you from _any_ Kiri ninja or citizen," the brunette Mist jounin formally told the blonde as soon as the boy entered the room. "I would like to offer a personal apology as well."

"We're good as long as you don't try to touch the sword."

"Of course not, Uzumaki-sama," the Kiri shinobi said with a wince and reached up to rub a new scar. "Kanotomi Fudo is yours beyond all doubt."

"And you'll leave Bandages alone?" the younger male asked with a frown.

"Bandages?"

"Momochi Zabuza," Kakashi said as he dropped a hand on Naruto's head. "He's a Konoha shinobi now."

"Well, I'll have to ask the Mizukage on that one," the brunette hedged. He was going to promise anything in the name of his Kage without permission and there was no way in hell that anyone was going to make him promise an Uzumaki anything he wasn't 100% confident in. "My Kage asked me to extend an offer of Kiri citizenship to you."

"Dual citizenship, of course," the Mist jounin added quickly when he saw the glares that Kakashi and the Sandaime were aiming at him. "Registration with Kiri as a shinobi would be no problem if you wanted to stay active in the village."

"Do Kiri kids still have to ki–" Naruto started to say when he was interrupted.

"Why don't you think about it and get back to the Mizukage later, Naruto?" the Hokage interjected as he subtly separated the jinchuriki from the foreign shinobi. Konoha did not need an international incident with Kiri and, Uzumaki or no, Naruto would have caused one if he'd finished that sentence. "You can drop by my office next week with an answer and we'll send a messenger hawk."

"I can wait for his answer," the Kiri ninja tried to suggest; it would certainly give him more time to persuade the boy.

"Hokage-sama said he will send a hawk," Gai interjected from where he was standing to the right of Kakashi, "and our glorious Hokage would not betray his flames of youth! If you do not receive the hawk within five days I swear I will climb the Hokage Monument with my tongue! If I cannot do that –"

"Whatever's easiest jii-jii," the teen said as he eyed the beginnings of Gai's sunset and decided to leave the Hokage's office by jumping out the window. Super-brow's not-genjutsu was creepy at the best of times and he really didn't want to be around for the rather epic one that seemed to be forming behind the jounin.

As soon as Naruto was gone, all pretenses dropped from the Konoha shinobi in the room and the sunset forming behind the spandex-clad man abruptly ceased to exist.

"You can tell your Mizukage that Naruto will not be moving to Kiri," the Sandaime said as he sat down behind his desk. "Not now, not ever."

"With all respect, Hokage, that is Uzumaki-sama's choice, not yours."

"He won't go," one of the Jounin commented as he lit a new cigarette from his old one. "The kid's got family here and he's not leaving them for anything."

"Any Uzumaki would be welcomed in Kiri with open arms."

"Didn't say it was blood family," Asuma said before taking a long drag from his cigarette and blowing the smoke in the Mist shinobi's direction.

"I'm sure the Mizukage would have no problem if Uzumaki-sama decided to bring some of his family with him to Kiri."

"I don't think you understand," Kakashi said as he held his right arm away from his side and a Chidori sparked to life. "Naruto is not leaving Konoha."

"The Mizukage awaits your hawk," the Mist jounin managed to press out before he used shushin to get away from the group of Konoha shinobi. He had the feeling that if he ran into Hatake again the man wouldn't really have a problem with frying him. His new life goal was going to be avoiding anything and everything that had to do with Konoha; the people there were crazy and anything that had to do with them always went to h*** at the first opportunity.

.~.~.~.

Barely a day and a half later, one of Jiraya's spies heard a rumor about a blonde kid from Leaf and passed it on to the Sannin. The Toad Summoner took one look at the note and immediately proceeded towards Konoha and his old teacher. If what his spy had heard was true, then the final part of Konoha's Chunin Exam was going to rather interesting for the village.

Jiraya headed for the Hokage as soon as he arrived and pressed the note into the Sandaime's hands the moment he was certain the room was secure. Sarutobi read the message and looked at his old pupil in alarm.

The Godaime Mizukage had ordered every single Kiri shinobi not currently on mission to go to Konoha and make friends with Naruto so they could convince the Uzumaki to move to Mist. The ninja were encouraged to share jutsu with Naruto while he was training for the Chunin Exams and the shinobi that brought Naruto to Kiri would be able to ask a single boon of the Mizukage – anything from free access to Mist's jutsu library to receiving recognized Clan status in Kirigakure.

At the bottom of the note was an addendum: The offer of a reward is valid for any shinobi, whether or not they are from Kiri, if they can convince Naruto Uzumaki to move to Mist.

Below that was an every smaller postscript: Missing nin, please note that Kiri _will_ provide sanctuary and reinstatement at present threat level in Mist shinobi corps for _anyone_ who convinces the Uzumaki to move to Kiri. Kidnapping does not count.

"Are any of the Akatsuki likely to take the Mizukage up on his offer?" the Hokage asked in dread. They were the biggest group of missing nin around right now and Hiruzen had no idea if any of them would be interested in an offer of sanctuary and reinstatement.

"Kisame's one of the Seven Swordsman," Jiraya answered flatly. "He'll show up to get a look at Kanotomi Fudo if nothing else – and with him comes Uchiha Itachi."

"At least Naruto will do well in the Chunin Exams," the Sandaime said with a wince as he started writing missions to strengthen Konoha's defenses against foreign ninja. "Everyone else is screwed."

==o0o==

**AN:** I wrote a large part of this (about 4000 words) in one day when the plot bunny hit me over the head at work and wouldn't leave me alone until it got to play on paper. Hope you enjoyed it! Also, I just thought I'd let anyone who might be interested know that I'm working on a sequel to "Lord Hokage."


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